Lions win 19-15 thriller against Trinity
By Sam Waller
High school football coaches stress the importance of playing a full 48 minutes.
The Albany Lions provided an example of why that is important in a 19-15 season-opening victory Friday, Aug. 26 against the Lubbock Trinity Christian Lions at Robert Nail Memorial Stadium.
Albany makes its first road outing of the season at 7:00 p.m. Friday, Sept. 2, when they visit the Dublin Lions at Cervetto Stadium.
Game Details
Against Trinity, Adam Hill scored the deciding touchdown with 1:45 remaining, and London Fuentes made a clinching interception with 53 seconds left as Albany battled to overcome a series of mistakes.
“It’s always a positive thing to start out with a win,” Albany head coach Denney Faith said. “Starting the season with a win gives you something to build off of.”
While the end result was positive, Faith said there is still room for his team to improve.
“We got the win, but there are still plenty of things we’ve got to get better at,” he said.
The difference, Faith said, was Albany’s perseverance against a challenging opponent.
“The scrimmages showed that we’re not having to coach effort,” he said. “As long as our kids keep playing hard, we feel that good things will happen.”
But that’s to be expected of Albany teams, the coach said.
“Just like all our teams have always been, they’re going to fight to the end, and they’re going to play hard,” Faith said. “We made plays when we had to make plays and got things done.”
Albany outgained Trinity 364 total yards to 270, but trailed until the middle of the fourth quarter. Two lost fumbles, one at the Trinity 1-yard line, and five penalties combined to put Albany on the wrong end of the score most of the night, but a solid defensive effort kept the Lions in the game.
“Our defense played really well,” Faith said. “They were physical and ran to the ball, had great pursuit. We had a lot of people in on tackles. You didn’t see many one-on-one tackles. We had two, three, four guys meeting at the ball.”
Koy Cauble was in on 11 tackles and recorded half a sack to lead the Albany defense. Hill finished with seven total tackles and a sack, Samuel Rosas had five stops, and Lanxton Viertel had four with two tackles for loss.
“We just had to focus on their best player and get him shut down,” Cauble said. “Everything else kind of fell around that.”
Albany held Trinity running back Marcus Ramon-Edwards in check most of the way. The Texas Tech commit finished with 131 yards and two touchdowns rushing on 16 carries. His first score, a 63-yard run midway through the second quarter, was the only big play he produced.
Albany countered with 127 yards from Coy Lefevre, 80 from Hill, and 67 from quarterback Cole Chapman. Chapman also completed 11 of 18 passes for 94 yards and a touchdown.
“We had three guys in the backfield who all had good games,” Faith said. “They all ran hard, and that all comes from the guys up front being able to move people around against a real physical defensive front.”
Lefevre and Hill each rushed for a score, while Chapman connected with Fuentes on a 19-yard touchdown pass for Albany’s first points of the season.
“You want to play teams like this so we’re better down the road,” said Fuentes, who caught five passes for 52 yards in addition to gaining another 52 yards on returns. “We love these tough matchups. It’s better than just rolling everyone we play because this makes us better.”
Both teams saw their first three possessions end on downs, a lost fumble and a punt before Trinity struck the first blow. Ramon-Edwards moved to quarterback for Trinity’s fourth possession and kept around left end, breaking two tackles before setting sail on his long touchdown run.
Albany countered with a 12-play drive that yielded only more frustration as Lefevre lost the ball when he tried to reach over the goal line.
“We felt we missed two touchdowns in the first half,” Faith said. “Not letting that affect us the rest of the game showed a lot of character and calmness. That comes from the senior leadership, being able to take on a situation like that and keep plugging away.”
Albany opened the third quarter with another long drive that ended on downs when Chapman was sacked on fourth down.
After forcing a punt, the Lions moved 62 yards in seven plays for their first score of the season on Chapman’s pass to Fuentes with 51 seconds left in the third. Even that success was less than satisfying as a bad snap doomed the conversion attempt, leaving Albany behind 7-6.
Albany forced another punt before taking its first lead. With 9:58 remaining in the game, Lefevre raced 77 yards on the first play for a 12-7 advantage, but the two-point conversion try failed.
Trinity responded with an eight-play drive to regain the lead on Ramon-Edwards’ two-yard run with 6:17 to go. His two-point conversion run gave Trinity a three-point edge.
Albany gained one first down on its next possession, but faced fourth-and-9 at its own 36 with 4:38 remaining in the game. Faith elected to rely on his defense, and Zane Waggoner delivered a 41-yard punt.
The defense came through with its third consecutive three-and-out series as things finally turned in Albany’s favor.
“We couldn’t let them get anything,” Cauble said. “We had to shut them down the best that we could.”
Fuentes returned the punt 30 yards, and a personal foul on Trinity moved the ball to the Trinity 19. On the second play, Hill burst through a gaping hole on the left side and dashed untouched for a 15-yard touchdown. Fuentes’ extra point provided the final margin.
Trinity threatened, moving inside the Albany 40 in the final minute before Fuentes’ interception allowed the home team to run out the clock.
Facing Dublin
Albany gets its second Lions-vs.-Lions matchup to start the season when it visits Dublin for the second year in a row.
Dublin is coming off a 61-23 loss to Fort Worth Christian in its opener last week.
“It’s going to be a completely different type of game from what we saw last week,” Faith said. “Trinity only threw eight passes. If Dublin throws less than 40, I’ll be surprised.”
Quarterback Chris Teten passed for 4,066 yards and 42 touchdowns last year in earning third-team APSE all-state honors.
“It’s going to be good for us,” Faith said. “We faced a power team last week, now we’ve got to come out and do something completely different.”
Albany won last year’s meeting 48-21 as Chapman passed for four touchdowns. That game was Albany’s season opener after its game against Colorado City was cancelled. Faith said Albany is in a better situation this time around.
“If nothing else, just being able to play four quarters was important,” he said. “As long as it stays hot and humid like this, we’re going to have to play our way into shape. There was a lot of cramping on both sides of the field last week, and you’re going to get that early in the season until you get a little bit of cool weather and kids get in game shape.”
Kicker
