JOSE RODRIGUEZ | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
CORPUS CHRISTI — Flour Bluff’s offense puts pressure on its counterparts to keep up on a points-for-points basis or play for time of possession, try as they may, given the Hornets’ penchant for lighting up scoreboards.
It’s no secret that most teams can ill afford to squander scoring opportunities by punting or turning the ball over against the Bluff.
Mission Veterans Memorial was just the latest to find out the hard way.
The Hornets scored on each of their first three possessions — five of their first seven — while the Patriots came away empty-handed with their first five possessions, resulting in an early, sizeable deficit that Flour Bluff turned into a 55-28 win Friday at Hornet Stadium.
Bluff advances to the Region IV semifinals of the Class 5A Division I playoffs, where it will play either Austin Vandegrift or Lockhart.
There was no slow start for Bluff this time, mixing up the play calling between the pass and run.
Cody Brewer completed 4 of 4 passes — two of which moved the sticks — and Reidel Clayton capped an eight-play, 75-yard drive with a 2-yard plunge.
Mission Veterans Memorial’s response: a three-and-out, gaining two yards.
Bluff’s second possession too was eight plays long, topped off by a Brewer 2-yard touchdown run. The Patriots, facing a 14-0 than halfway through the first, again went three and out.
Then, Bluff really turned to its ground game, going back and forth between Brewer and J.J. Winfrey to churn a seven-play march capped by Winfrey’s score from the Mission Veterans 1.
In the second, the Hornets finally unleashed the extent of their aerial attack.
Brewer went 4 for 4 on his team’s second possession of the stanza, connecting with Kevin Dewitt on a slant pattern for a 12-yard strike.
Mission Veterans answered for its first points of the night, as Robert Tovar was on the receiving end of a 34-yard touchdown from quarterback Santos Villarreal.
The Patriots’ score didn’t necessarily carry the weight of a momentum changer, but Bluff went ahead and left no doubt as to which team was in control with its next play from scrimmage.
Brewer dropped back and let the speedy Dewitt, as he’s done so often in his two seasons as a receiver, get behind the opposing secondary.
The 6-foot-6 gunslinger unloaded a deep pass, which Dewitt seamlessly ran under to snag and finish what became a 70-yard touchdown.
Dewitt exited with seven receptions for 204 yards and two scores, adding a touchdown pass early in the fourth when he hit Thomas Evaristo with a 7-yarder on a trick play.
Between Dewitt’s second and third scores, Mission Veterans scored just once, struggling to keep Bluff within reach before adding a pair of late touchdowns with second units patrolling the turf.