The Comfort High football team continues district play this week and will make a trip to Thrall to take on the Tigers.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m. Bobcats coach Jay Rieken said he doesn’t know much about Thrall and admits to never having been to the town.
Thrall is 0-2 in district and Comfort is 0-1, so one of the teams will pick up their first win in 13-3A DII, and in a five-team district with only four league games, one victory can sometimes get a team into the playoffs.
“This one is huge,” Rieken said.
Thrall scores a lot but they also give up a lot of points. In three losses this year, the Tigers gave up 70, 51 and 68 points, but in wins, they tallied 62 and 50 points.
“I hope we get the Thrall team that gives up a lot of points,” Rieken said.
Both Thrall and Comfort have played Johnson City and beat the Eagles, but Rieken said there isn’t too much to gain from comparing scores. (Comfort won 21-14 and Thrall won 62-28.)
“There’s too many variables,” Rieken said. “Johnson City didn’t look like the same team that we had played early in the year. It looked like they might have had a lot of players out.”
One thing that Comfort has struggled with this year is costly penalties and that was the case last Friday against Rogers.
The Bobcats were shutout in the second half after both teams sprinted out to a 24-24 halftime score. Rogers managed one TD in the second half and that was the difference in a 31-24 loss.
Rieken said Comfort’s best chance to score in the second half was negated by penalties.
“We had the ball at their 16-yard line and had some penalties and ended up with a 4th and 39,” he said. “Their defense stepped it up and we couldn’t overcome. We’ve got to be more disciplined, we had penalties at the most inopportune time.”
Comfort outgained Rogers in total yards 312 to 300, but 10 penalties for 75 yards really hurt.
Rieken said they played great at times, like in the first half when they tallied 24 points, but noted that they needed to be more consistent, especially as they play their final three games with a playoff spot on the line.
“We have to put four quarters together,” he said. “The kids play hard and the effort is always there, but we have to be consistent and put four quarters together.”
Topper Sterling did his part as he rushed for 158 yards on 21 Totes and a score, QB Carter Pape ran 5 times for 44 yards and a TD, Jose Gaspar caught a TD pass from Pape and Omar Rivera kicked a field goal to round out the Comfort scoring.
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