From The Brazosport Facts

SWEENY — Hurricane Laura did the Bulldogs no favors leading into their showdown with the top-rated team in the district.

Sweeny (1-3) stays at home against the Needville Bluejays (1-3) at 7:30 p.m. today at Bulldog Stadium, and they will have their hands full keeping up with an offense that can score in numerous ways with less practice time than usual.

“We didn’t practice Monday and we got cut short Tuesday, so it’s definitely been a short week for us as far as preparation,” Sweeny head coach/Athletics Director Randy Lynch said. “Needville is so good offensively — they are balanced, they can throw and run anytime they want, and they have two really good backs. Their quarterback can spin it pretty well and he’s a talented kid.”

The Blue Jays’ quarterback Trevor Baker is a gunslinger who likes to throw the ball deep and give his receivers a chance to make a play in one-on-one coverage. He’s thrown for 817 yards and six touchdowns to five interceptions and is mobile enough to get out of bad situations with 111 yards rushing.

His leading receivers are Blake Maresh, who averages 19.3 yards per catch with 18 receptions for 348 yards and two touchdowns and Dax Bridges with 11 catches for 249 yards and three touchdowns.

“He’s got a few weapons on the outside, but their running backs are really good — No. 5 and No. 1,” he said. “They’re both really good and they can lean on you up front, just like how Brazosport against us with their big offensive line.”

Running backs Walker Warncke and Sherman Jones have combined for 686 yards and 11 touchdowns, an average of more than 170 yards a game. The Sweeny defense has not done well this season, giving up 37.3 points per game this season and the Blue Jays average 31.3.

“The fact that they spread you out, it’s hard to emulate some of that in a gym and of course we didn’t have practice Monday,” Lynch said. “We tried to make it up yesterday and today to get their feet back under them and our defensive backs have a big job ahead of them.”

It will be a tough matchup, especially since the Needville defensive line boasts Rice verbal commit Blake Boenisch, a three-star defensive tackle on ESPN, and Bryant Jones. They have 37 tackles combined including five tackles for loss this season.

“It’s going to be a challenge for our defense as well as our offense. They have a big nose tackle on their defense that’s committed to Rice and he’s really good, and No. 44 is one I like as well. He’s got a high motor,” he said. “They have some big kids up front, and we have a challenge in front of us in terms of running the ball. We’re going to try and keep working off what we did last week, where we had almost 500 yards rushing. We’re going to try and keep doing what we do and get better.”

Sweeny is coming off its first win of the season, a 56-38 triumph at Hempstead that saw the Bulldogs run 410 yards on 43 carries.