Published: September 03, 2008 10:55 pm            

Area High School Notebook: It won’t be long now

Hornets ready for football season opener; Lady Hornets take second at Santa Fe tournament, start preparing for district

School was back in session Wednesday and the Hornets got back on schedule.

After working out in the morning on Labor Day and repeating that schedule Tuesday when school was canceled due to a hurricane evacuation center set up at Huntsville High School, the Hornets returned to their usual practice routine Wednesday, working out after school for more than two hours.

Head coach Mitchell Coey said the Hornets had a pair of productive morning practices this week, even though the workouts were not mandatory for junior varsity and freshman players.

“We had a lot of JV kids show up. They helped us put together a good scout team, and we got some good work done,” Coey said Wednesday afternoon. “We started at 9 and got through about noon both days.”

Huntsville kicks off its 10-game regular season Saturday against College Park in Shenandoah. Coey said the players and coaches are itching to start what they believe will be an exciting campaign.

“Everybody’s ready to go,” the coach said. “We can’t wait to crank it up for real.”

The Hornets turned the page on the preseason and started preparing for Saturday’s game at Woodforest Stadium after last week’s home scrimmage against former District 18-4A foe Livingston. Coey said his team made a number of critical mistakes last week, but the coach added, that’s why teams play preseason games. Coaches need to know where the problems are so they can be fixed.

“We looked at the tape from the Livingston scrimmage,” Coey said. “During the controlled part of the scrimmage we weren’t awake or something, but we did a lot better during the live quarters. They hit a couple of long passes where we blew an assignment or lined up wrong, but we can fix that.

“Honestly, that was a good scrimmage for us. We got to evaluate a lot of kids. It was also a good lesson to learn.

“We preach to our guys, you’re only as good as the next game. We can’t keep living on last week’s game. When it’s over and we’ve won, we tell them to celebrate for 24 hours, then we’re going to get back to work, preparing for the next game.”

Two weeks ago, Huntsville gave an impressive performance in a three-touchdown-to-one win over Conroe in the preseason’s first scrimmage. Last week, the Hornets lost 3-2 to Livingston.

College Park wins opener

at Reliant Stadium

Last week, the College Park Cavaliers opened the 2008 season at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Yes, that Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans.

The Cavaliers did pretty well too, defeating Kingwood 18-16 in the second game of the annual High School Football Kickoff Classic.

This week, College Park plays host to Huntsville at Conroe ISD’s brand-new, $12.6 million Woodforest Bank Stadium, which is located behind the Portofino Center in Shenandoah. Caney Creek and Oak Ridge officially opened the 10,000-seat facility last Thursday night, then a sold-out crowd came to see The Woodlands crush Cy-Fair on Friday.

This week, College Park plays its first regular-season game inside the stadium built for the three schools located in the southern portion of Montgomery County — The Woodlands, College Park and Oak Ridge.



Lady Hornets back at practice

After a second-place finish last weekend at the Santa Fe tournament, Huntsville’s varsity volleyball team took a much-deserved day off Monday. It was Labor Day and first-year coach Brittany Brumbelow wanted to give her players some time away from school and sports.

On Tuesday evening, the Lady Hornets returned to the gym for an abbreviated workout. First they had to wait until more than 400 hurricane evacuees from Beaumont, Louisiana and Alabama cleared out of the Paul Bohan Hornet Gym. When those folks left, Brumbelow and the Lady Hornets went back to work.

“We’re back on schedule now,” Brumbelow said after practice Wednesday.

The Lady Hornets, who play at A&M Consolidated on Friday and at Bryan next Tuesday, open District 18-4A play on Sept. 12 in Willis.

After winning four matches and losing two — both to host Santa Fe — last weekend, Huntsville’s head coach says she’s looking forward to battling the best teams in 18-4A and seeing how the district race shakes out.

It’s not going to be easy playing Brenham, Montgomery and now Magnolia, the district’s newcomer, but it should be fun.

“This past weekend made me feel like we’re ready for district,” Brumbelow said. “Everything seems to be coming together at the right time. We had some problems early, but we’re definitely fixing those problems.”

On Saturday, the Lady Hornets beat Rockwall 25-23 and 25-20 to get to the tournament’s championship match. Caitlin Germany and Sara Vaughn led Huntsville with eight kills each. Hayley Tatom added five spikes and Chelsea Baker had three.

“We played great defense in the match against Rockwall,” Brumbelow said. “I don’t know how many digs Kayla Hayden had, but she had a bunch. That was probably the best defense we’ve played all season.”

Santa Fe edged the Lady Hornets 25-20, 22-25 and 25-20 in the final game of the tournament.

“We played well, but they’re a really good team,” Brumbelow said. “We had an opportunity to beat them. We just didn’t step up and do it. For the entire weekend, though, that was probably the best we have played all year. There were 19 to 20 teams there, and for the most part, there was some good competition.”

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.