San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Rockets hope to learn from loss
AUSTIN — In the aftermath of a 52-20 drubbing at Austin Lake Travis, Judson coach Rodney Williams doled out accountability for every Rocket who showed up to Cavalier Stadium on Friday night.
“We are going to know that we have to prepare every day in practice, every day watching film like it’s a state championship game,” Williams said. “That comes with maturity, and as coaches, we need to do a better job of trying to get our guys to focus more.”
The Rockets (1-1) were hoping for another statement victory like their 35-28 win over DeSoto the week before.
“When you play a team the caliber as Lake Travis and you make as many mistakes as we did mentally, it was poor execution all the way around offensively,” Williams said. “I thought we had a good game plan. We had some guys banged up, and we played a lot of young guys against a quality opponent. You just try to hope it holds on, and tonight, it didn’t work out.”
A plethora of mistakes included two lost fumbles, a pick-six, a kickoff return for a score and three high snaps for a total loss of 42 yards. Most of the miscues created short fields for the Cavaliers (2-0).
That’s not an ideal approach against a program with six state championships since 2007.
“We didn’t need to self-destruct,” Williams said. “You come off and do a little self-destruction against a team like this on their home field. … It was good learning experience for us with not having a lot of kids who have never been in an experience like this. It’s just going to make us better.”
Things looked promising early when the Rockets tied it at 7 on their first possession when Marvin Beasley hauled in a swing pass from Michael Burroughs for a 63yard score.
Lake Travis responded with 38 straight points to take a commanding 45-7 lead by the middle of the third quarter.
The Cavaliers’ Isaac Norris scored four touchdowns, including a 55-yard kickoff return. Norris also had two 4-yard TD runs and a 6-yard scoring reception.
Fourth-year starting linebacker Derrick Johnson returned an interception 22 yards for a score in the third quarter for Lake Travis.
Judson’s Nathanael Stanley scored on a 1-yard run, and Anthony Evans recovered a fumble by teammate Alan Caracheo on a punt return and raced 67 yards for a score in the second half.
The Rockets close out non-district play against A&M Consolidated on Friday at San Marcos.
It’s a bonus game for the Rockets, who didn’t have an opponent for Week 3 on their original schedule. The game was set up four weeks ago when A&M Consolidated’s opponent — a team from Mexico — couldn’t play because of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
It’s turned out to be an ideal situation for Judson, which had four members on its offensive line Friday playing in their first varsity game.
“This is going to make us a lot better,” Williams said. “That’s why you play the teams you play. If you lose, you lose and you learn from those losses and come out better in the end.”