Originally Posted by
jason
Let last night sink in a bit but have some thoughts.
Yeah, Stephenville lost last night to a bigger, faster, and just overall better Kennedale team. That happens. This group was playing with house money making it this far so a loss to a better team, while it stinks, is nothing to hang their heads over.
This group was 7-15 over the past two seasons (3-8 last year) and were coming into this season with a ton of question marks. Was that underclassmen group as good as advertised? Who would play quarterback after the Easton Jones injury? And then a lot of other internal stuff that nobody had the answers to.
This team of mostly underclassmen did the unthinkable and won the district beating Wylie and Brownwood along the way and even after that headed into the playoffs with people still wondering how good they were.
Those questions were answered in the third round when nobody gave them a chance against a very good Argyle squad. Then to have 6 turnovers and still win by 10 in a regional final, people finally started noticing. Then here comes Kennedale: Senior laden, bigger, faster, stronger. Nothing you can do about it.
This team is the 9th Stephenville team since 1990 to make it to the state semi finals.*
Think about that. 1 out of every 3 years over a span of 27 years Stephenville High School is still alive in the bracket this late in December. There may be a few schools who can match that, but not many, if any at all.
All that being said, this team loses the 2nd all time leading passer in Stephenville history (QB Easton Jones) and one of the best WR to come through in a long, long time, Texas State commit Blake Aragon. However, they will bring back 15 starters, the majority of that being on an already very good defense and expectations will be higher than ever.
I'm not from Stephenville originally and have no real vested interest other than it's the team in the town where we live. But it's our home now. We know people in the community and they know we love football. I went to college here, met my wife out at the bar one night here (that's a whole other story), and now have a 3 year old son who is already excited about football Fridays who sits in the stands every game shaking his can screaming 'Go Yellowjackets' (for about a quarter anyways, he does have the attention span of a 3 year old). Hopefully that state semi final streak is still in tact when he suits up.
That's all I got. I'll be in Arlington next Friday - if you see me come say hi.