The Central Catholic Buttons enter Warhorse Stadium Friday night as Devine’s last pre-district opponent for the 2018 football season. The Horses (2-2) look to rebound from last week’s 19-39 loss to the Pleasanton Eagles, and are working towards overall improvement in their final dress rehearsal before taking on the Owls in Hondo on October 12.
Central Catholic is currently 2-2 on the season after last week’s 36-15 win against Austin Regents. Button Head Coach Mike Santiago is implementing the so-called West Coast offense for quarterback Nick Chavez and his slew of receivers. Currently, Chavez has thrown for 612 yards while completing 68 passes to eight different receivers through four ballgames.
Chavez’s primary target is wide out Gibby Garza. Garza has accumulated 259 yards and four touchdowns on 23 receptions this season. The next QB read is Doug Karam. Karam does not have the amount of receiving yards (80) as Garza but he is the number one option when the situation calls for a pass on medium third down situations.
“Central Catholic is yet another school on our schedule with over 1,000 enrollment,” stated Warhorse Head Coach Paul Gomez. “Central also is a very good passing team as was Pleasanton. Although they do not have any 6’4” receivers like the Eagles had with Hobbs, they have several 6’ and 5’11” receivers that do a good job of getting open in their routes.
The Button’s offense will try to get into a 3-receiver combination, whether it’s lining up in a normal trips formation or lining up in 2 x 2 and then motioning to trips. They will try to find the holes in our defensive coverage (whether it is a curl, a swing by the tailback, a wheel route, or straight down the hash) and take advantage of it.
They have a speedy running back, Zack Davidsmeyer that does a good job in the zone-blocking scheme. He is patient until he finds a hole then has a great burst to get through it. They will definitely be another tough assignment for the defense but Defensive Coordinator Coach George Villa spent many hours this weekend putting our boys in the best possible position for success.
The days of scheduling so-called “easy competition” for Homecoming weekend are over. Those teams do not want to play us anymore; that is why we have to play bigger enrollment schools. However, I truly believe the tougher schedule will make us a better team in the end.
Yes, it will be Homecoming and we will have many alumni at the game. These boys understand that they are representing our program and this community, so we got back to work Monday striving to be the best that we can be.
We have great work ethic so I am very confident that we will be ready to go on Friday, rain or shine.”
Kickoff is set for 7:30pm at Warhorse Stadium.
By Jerel Beaty
Staff Writer
