La Grange plans a run at capturing state title
Dynamic duo of Bralon Hutchison, J.K. Dobbins could lead the way.
LA GRANGE — At La Grange High, championship rings have replaced lettermen jackets as the must-have accessory for the school’s elite athletes.
La Grange’s baseball team won the Class 3A state championship in 2013, and the Leopard softball squad matched that accomplishment this past spring. The school’s volleyball team got close to a first-place showing in 2012 — La Grange was upended in the fifth set of the Class 3A championship match — and a few of the football coaches have won titles.
Now, La Grange’s football team is hoping that it will get to call a jeweler by the end of the year.
“(There’s) an expectation here that semifinals is a great year, but it’s not what you want,” said La Grange head coach Matt Kates, who was an assistant on La Marque’s 2003 Class 4A, Division II title team.
“They dream about going six weeks and putting a ring on their finger, like a couple on the team have and like a couple of girls have in this town,” Kates said.
A state semifinalist in 2013, La Grange was won all 12 of its games this season. The Leopards will meet Sour Lake Hardin-Jefferson (11-1) in Shenandoah on Friday afternoon for a Class 4A, Division II regional playoff game.
La Grange’s undefeated run has been engineered by the seniorsophomore pairing of Bralon Hutchison and J.K. Dobbins. The Texas State-bound Hutchison is used as the primary run- ning back in the Leopards’ pro-style offense, and Dobbins splits his time between the quarterback and wide receiver positions.
Hutchison and Dobbins also line up as safeties for a defense that is allowing 14 points per game.
“They’re really good for us. I wonder how good they could be if all they had to do was play offense,” Kates said.
Kates added that the Leopards went into the season thinking that if they ran 45 offensive plays each game, 40 of those plays needed to end up with Hutchison or Dobbins. That plan has worked well for an offense that has scored 502 points.
Dobbins has rushed for 1,967 yards and 33 touchdowns, and four of his eight pass attempts have been touchdown tosses to senior Rylan Rigden. A fourth-year starter, Hutchison has exceeded 1,000 rushing yards and scored on two kickoff returns.
Both players topped 200 rushing yards — over three quarters of work — in last week’s 49-7 win over Orangefield.
Senior Will Davidson is the only player on the football team’s roster who owns a championship ring, as he was a reserve catcher on the baseball team in 2013. But if La Grange survives the next four weeks, the football team can claim the program’s third title.
In addition to bling, a state championship will secure the team a spot on a brick wall outside of the town’s football stadium. The brick wall boasts plaques for eight of the school’s nine state champions (last spring’s softball team has yet to be enshrined).
The football team practices and plays by the brick wall. The acronym for “Get On The Wall” has become the Leopards’ rallying cry.
“Football is basically what this is town is made of,” Hutchison said. “Getting on the wall is a very big honor, there aren’t many people that are on there. You want to be on there to be remembered in the town of La Grange.”