Two teams with a rich rivalry that dates back to the late 1930s faced off on Friday in the Willacy County Cotton Bowl and the contest didn’t disappoint. The Lyford fans, anyway.
The Bulldogs rallied from a 7-point deficit to score 49 unanswered points and rout Raymondville 49-7 in front of a disappointed Bearkat bunch at Burnett Stadium in Raymondville.
“I thought the kids had a great week of practice and I think they had a great game,” said Lyford head coach Jaime Infante. “I thought we had some hiccups in the first half but we talked about it during halftime and we straightened everything out.
“Raymondville came out hard and came out fighting. Obviously the negative-type turnovers will haunt any team and tonight they were haunted by that more that we were, but that’s the game of football and it’s a game of execution.”
Raymondville had an uncharacteristic six turnovers in the game while Lyford had two.
However, the big hero of the game was Lyford’s Frank Moreno, who scored four touchdowns.
Moreno scored three on the ground and had a pick-six on a 25-yard interception.
“Frank works hard and is one of our stellar players,” said Infant. “He was the player of the year his sophomore year and has been with us since his freshman year, and he’s a great football player with a great attitude and we expect big things out of him.”
While the final score might not reflect it, Raymondville scored first on a fumble recovery by Jacob Posas, who took it 60 yards the other way to give the home team a 7-0 lead with 9:55 remaining in the first quarter.
However, Lyford scored on the ensuing drive and just kept piling it on.
UP NEXT: Next Friday, the 0-3 Bearkats head on the road to face a 3-0 Brownsville St. Joseph Academy that has an almost unstoppable offense.
Meanwhile, the 2-1 Bulldogs host 2-1 Grulla at home.