Comfort enters bye week on a roll

Comfort enters bye week on a roll

KERRY BARBOZA Sports Editor

The Comfort football team is off this weekend and the Bobcats are going into their bye week playing some pretty good football.

Comfort has won three straight and two of those wins are district victories, leaving the Bobcats at 3-3 overall and 2-0.

When Comfort resumes play after taking this Friday off, they’ll visit Karnes City Oct. 13 to continue 15-3A DII action.

After an 0-3 start to the season, the Bobcats have beaten Brackett, 55-15, defeated Nixon-Smiley, 43-16, and then last Friday Comfort took care of Natalia, 24-0.

Last Friday’s shutout against the Mustangs was the first of the season for the Bobcats defense, which also came up with an interception and a fumble recovery on Natalia’s first two drives.

“The defense played really well, they were stepping up and doing what they needed to do,” Comfort coach Jay Rieken said. “Getting a win and a shutout is hard.”

Israel Lopez had the interception and returned it for a touchdown but it was called back because of a penalty and, even though the touchdown didn’t stand, the interception did.

On Natalia’s next possession, Gio Lopez tackled Mustangs QB Leo Buentello and stripped the ball loose before recovering the fumble.

Not only did Comfort shutout Natalia, but they held the Mustangs to 147 total yards from scrimmage and just seven first downs.

Comfort signal caller Micah Nye tallied the Bobcats’ first two touchdowns of the game last week. On Comfort’s opening drive, Nye ran it in from the 5-yard line for a score.

In the second quarter, Nye used a quarterback sneak to dive into the end zone and make it 14-0.

With time winding down in the second quarter, Julio Lopez-Torres booted a 40-yard field goal that cleared with plenty of room to spare to end the first half with Comfort leading 17-0.

Both defenses stiffened in the third quarter and didn’t allow a point, but the Bobcats broke through early in the fourth quarter to add to their lead.

This time Nye went to the air and found Gio Lopez on a 25-yard touchdown pass early in the period to bump the score to 24-0.

Comfort’s defense came up with another fumble recovery in the second half, while Topper Sterling led the ground game with 124 rushing yards on 20 carries.

Sterling did have a screen pass that went for about 70 yards and a score but was called back for a block in the back so Comfort had two touchdowns negated, the other on the interception return, and Rieken said they need to fix those things.

“I know where they what to go and where we’d like them to go, so we have a lot to clean up,” the coach said. “We played good enough to win, but we need to play better if we’re going to be playing for a while. We kind of got blown off the line and we couldn’t get the chunk plays that we like, but we can’t gripe about the win.”