Bay City Tribune

Tidehaven's quest for a second straight trip to the playoff starts Friday night with a home game against defending District 29-2A champion Industrial. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. at Taska Tiger Stadium.

The 2-3 Tigers who were open last week, lost to Class 3A Needville two weeks ago. The Cobras are 4-1 beating Taft last Friday.

"This is it now," said Tidehaven coach Jim Sides. "This is the one we've been looking forward too."

Industrial spanked the Tigers 33-0 in last year opener at Cobra Stadium. The Tigers then won three out of their next four games to take the third and final playoff spot.

"It's going to be a real tight race," said Sides with Boling, Hitchcock, Van Vleck and Danbury also competing for the three playoff spots at stake.

"It will be tough for someone to go undefeated It's even across the board."

Sides' team has its sight on the district title.

"They (our kids) want to win the district championship," said Sides. "They seem pretty fired up about it and ready to go."

Industrial is ranked 80th by huddleuptexas.com and the the Tigers are ranked 72nd but a 1-point underdog on Friday.

Industrial coach Doug Kuhlmann believes his team is ready for the opener.

"We're ready and have had our five non-district games," said Kuhlmann. "We're ready to start district."

The win over Taft was a big one.

Kuhlmann said he's impressed with Tidehaven.

"They want to knock off the one who won district the previous year," said Kuhlmann. "They use that a motivation factor. It will come down to the very last week."

"They do a lot of things right and have been in every ball game that we've seen them in," said Kuhlmann. "They are playing well and we expect a big ball game from them."

Sides said last week was a good one.

"We got rested up and it gave us a chance to work on some special teams stuff and get some guys that were banged up healed," said Sides.

Sides believes Industrial is the real deal.

"They are solid across the board and their kids play hard," said Sides. "They are very disciplined in what they do and well-coached. The just have a sound football team."

Industrial has a lot of size but Tidehaven matches up well with them.

"We're going to have to play mistake-free football," said Sides. "We're going to have to execute in all three phases of the game and win two of them. If we hold on to the football and play a sound game, we're going to be fine."

Industrial has outscored its five opponents 137-82 and is averaging 335 yards per game and the defense is yielding 196 yards per game.

The Cobras will be without their star running back Matt Anderson who went down with a season-ending injury in a loss to state-ranked Refugio three weeks ago. He had scored eight touchdowns and rushed for 338 yards before that.

Filling in will be Blaine Rozner has rushed for 318 yards Michael Montes who has rushed for 155 yards and Eric Santaillai who has rushed for 128 yards.

"We try to get the ball around to a lot of different people," said Kuhlmann. "Hopefully we can utilize them more."

Junior quarterback Austin Smalley has scored four touchdowns and rushed for 424 yards. He has completed nine of 19 passes for 122 yards. He has two TD passes and one interception.

Tidehaven has outscored their five opponents 113-103 and is averaging 326 yards per game and the defense is yielding 238 yards per game.

"They are real aggressive on the defensive side of the ball," said Kuhlmann. "Offensivley they do a good jop of dispersering the ball around to different people."

Junior running back Marcus Lara has scored nine touchdowns and rushed for 547 yards for a 7-yard average.

Junior running back Sean Dannels leads the district in passing. He has completed 78 of 150 passes for 882 yards. He has four TD passes and six interceptions.

Iae Wade leads the district in receiving. He has caught 25 passes for 205 yard and two have been for touchdowns. Colt Clont has caught 18 passes for 231 yards, Lara has caught 14 passes for 240 yards and Jeff Crawford has caught 10 passes for 112 yards.