By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
St. Joseph Academy is 2-0 in district play and hopes to vault toward a playoff spot or possibly a district title. But a few teams will have a say about that the next few weeks.
The Bloodhounds play host to fellow TAPPS Division I District 2 unbeaten Austin St. Michael’s at 7 p.m. tonight in an important district game at Canales Field in Brownsville.
St. Joseph faces the other unbeaten team in district, San Antonio Central Catholic, next week on the road.
But first things first, the Bloodhounds face a tough opponent in the Crusaders.
“They do it all (on offense), they’re going to be tough to stop,” St. Joseph coach Tino Villarreal said. “Our hope is to slow them down.”
The Bloodhounds’ concern is with a pair of athletic St. Michael’s receivers and running back De’Sean Johnson, not to mention a pocket passing quarterback that navigates between the two.
But the Crusaders have just as much respect and concern with St. Joseph’s offense.
“We have to work really hard at shutting down their high-powered offense,” St. Michael’s coach Benjamin Ortiz said. “They’ve been scoring a lot of points. They have some great athletes on that side of the ball. Kai Money does a great job running the offense. We’ve got to play well defensively, and we have the past couple of weeks. We’ve only given up a total of three points. We’re going to have to have another spectacular defensive game to play with these guys.”
The Bloodhounds come into the game on a six-game winning streak and with plenty of confidence, especially with an unbeaten start to the district season. St. Joseph feels poised because it knows St. Michael’s fairly well and what it can do.
“We’ve played them and we played them tough before, we know what to expect, so it’s all about execution,” Villarreal said. “We know they’re going to focus on Kai Money, so we’re continuing to work on the supporting cast to take some of that pressure off him. It’s basically the same recipe we used last week.”
Although Money was still effective against San Antonio St. Anthony’s, it was others who made the biggest difference, mainly running back Mario Garcia, who had five rushing touchdowns last week in the 58-0 victory.
In this week’s game, the teams are similar in what they can do offensively and what they do on defense. They’ve played in a nearly identical fashion against common district opponents, so it could come down to the little things that seem to always make a difference.
“We’re evenly matched,” Villarreal said. “It’s going to come down to who makes the most mistakes and who doesn’t, who brings the most aggression and who doesn’t.”
While Ortiz and his team aren’t looking ahead, they know they’ll have to play one of their best games of the season against the Bloodhounds.
“We’re just focused on them and working on getting better each week,” he said. “It’s going to be all three facets. I don’t think you can control one side of the ball game and expect to beat a team like Brownsville (St. Joseph). They’re a good group, they’re well coached … we just have to make sure we play well in all facets.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.