What a start!

The Friendswood Mustangs will go into district play next week undefeated at 4-0! Last night the Mustangs were victorious over their rivals, the Clear Book Wolverines. Of course it was another exciting game full of ups and downs. Football teams are classified by divisions in Texas, and the divisions are dependent on the size of the school. Divisions range from the smallest being 1A to the largest being 5A. Last night was a big game for us, because Clear Brook is a Division 5A school and we are a Division 4A school. It is always great to beat a team in a larger division.

You can tell that the first day of autumn is tomorrow, because the weather was great last night. There were a few times that I forgot we were sitting outside, because it was so comfortable. We played at the CCISD stadium, which Clear Brook shares with several other schools in the district. The traffic was unbelievable, because everyone from both sides was heading into the stadium from the same direction (Friendswood), and it took us an hour to make a drive that would normally be only 20 minutes. We walked in just as the national anthem was being performed, and thankfully we didn't miss the kick off.

The Mustangs went down early by 14 points (7-21). Clear Brook has a very strong running game and loves to run the quarterback option. They were fast and agile, and we had to do some adjusting to stop them. We were able to catch up due to a few wonderful offensive plays and were trailing 26-28 at halftime.

You could tell that the coaches really got the kids fired up during the halftime break, because they came out in the second half playing with a lot of emotion. That is the hardest I think I've seen the defense play all year. They really dug deep and played some very tough football. I was so proud of them! We took the lead in the 4th quarter with about 6 minutes remaining in the game. At this point, there were some questionable penalties called as well as some really generous spottings of the football in favor of Clear Brook. I think this just made our team even more inspired to pull out a win, and that is exactly what they did. Final score: Friendswood 40, Clear Brook 35.

My favorite part about last night's game was not the fact that we won (believe it or not). Lately my mom has started coming to the games (along with my father-in-law, mother-in-law, and dad). It's really great to have our whole family there showing support. And the best part...I have gotten a real kick out of watching my mom really get into the games! I've never known her to be into sports of any kind, with the exception of watching me play volleyball back in high school and college. I don't think she has ever watched an entire football game in her life. Yet she is on the edge of her seat with the rest of us, cheering on the Mustangs. It has been so surprising and is really fun for me to watch. She even went out and got royal blue shirts for both her and my dad to wear to the games. I love how we all support Jamie, just like he would support any of us. After all, that is what family is all about.

In other news around our district, we were really surprised to hear on the High School Scoreboard that the LaMarque Cougars (defending Division 4A state champions) beat the Pearland Oilers last night! Pearland is an extremely tough Division 5A school, and we were not expecting LaMarque to win that game. They were victorious by a score of 6-3. It is just our luck that the defending state champs are in our district. We will see LaMarque on October 12th, but I am not thinking about that too much just yet, since we have several other district games before then.

Next week begins district play when Santa Fe travels to our stadium to play the Mustangs. We are favored to win, but will need to be sure that we don't take our opponents too lightly. Any given team can win or lose on any given night. With that said, I fully expect us to be 5-0 at this time next week, and I am looking forward to it!