Lions battle weather, turnovers

The Lion football team battled the weather and a very physical Hawley Bearcat team last Friday at Wylie’s Bulldog Stadium, suffering their fourth straight loss in what is turning out to be an extremely atypical start to the season.

The injury-plagued Lions fell 32-7 to the Bearcats to go 0-4 for the year thus far, the worst start since the 1956 season when Albany posted a 2-8 record.

The Lions will pack up for a long road trip on Saturday to The Brook Hill School in Bullard located just south of Tyler. The Class 5A TAPPS school has an enrollment equivalent to a Class 3A in the UIL system.

Kickoff against the Guard (3-1) is set for 2:00 p.m. at Herrington Stadium, 1051 North Houston in Bullard.

“We don’t know much about them except that they have good athletes,” coach Denney Faith said. “I hate that this will be such a long trip for our fans to make, but we didn’t want to just play nine teams in the regular season after Roby dropped out of all their varsity games. The rest of the teams in our district all had to scramble to find games, with most also making long trips or playing at a neutral site.”

Travel time for the 280-mile trip is estimated at four hours and 15 minutes using an Interstate 20 route to Tyler. Fans can use Exit 553 and travel south on Texas 49 Loop, which circles around the west side of Tyler. There is a toll charge for the loop, with travelers exiting right onto FM 2493 and continuing a few miles to Bullard.

Loss to Hawley

Faith said that the loss to Hawley last Friday was a combination of events.

“Hawley had a big, physical team, which combined with the weather conditions and our injuries made for a perfect storm,” the coach said. “They kept us from driving the ball like we wanted, and turnovers also hurt us. The wind more than the rain played a big role against our type of offense.”

The coach said that Albany still has two key senior players healing from injuries.

“We had to shuffle people around, which had us playing out of position,” Faith said. “We couldn’t ever be consistent, especially on offense.”

Defensively, the Lions had trouble controlling Hawley’s ground game.

“They had a big running back that would get behind a couple of big blockers and pounded away at us,” he said. “Plus they had the ball almost three-quarters of the time, which makes it really tough to score.”

One bright spot of the contest was that no new injuries were reported.

“Payne (Hebel) and Cutter (Edgar) are still waiting to heal up completely and we don’t want to rush them,” he said. “We want to make sure they get healthy and ready for district.”

Albany has an open date next week, returning to the gridiron on Friday, Oct. 12 for the district opener against Baird.

While he acknowledged that starting the season with a 0-4 record is unusual for the Lions, the coach said what counts is the district portion of the schedule.

“We have learned a lot to prepare us for district even if we haven’t won a game yet,” Faith said.

Scoring Summary

Hawley – Dylan Frazier ran 35 yards for touchdown. Frazier PAT kick failed. 2nd quarter – 9:54. Score 0-6.

Hawley – Frazier ran 6 yards for touchdown. Frazier ran two-point conversion. 2nd quarter – 6:01. Score 0-14.

Hawley – Colton Marshall ran 1 yard for touchdown. Two-point conversion failed. 3rd quarter – 9:56. Score 0-20.

Hawley – Frazier ran 3 yard touchdown. Two-point conversion attempt failed. 3rd quarter – 6:34. Score 0-26.

Hawley – Marshall ran 6 yards for touchdown. Conversion pass failed. 4th quarter – 11:48. Score 0-32.

Albany – Ben West 39 yard pass to Blaine Kayga for touchdown. Ryan Hill PAT kick good. 4th quarter – 2:46. Score 7-32.