Decatur finishes season with loss, next year shows promise

— It has been a tough season for both the senior and junior high Decatur Bulldogs football teams. For the varsity team, the trip to Magazine ended with a loss to the Leftwich Rattlers 28 to 8 in the final game of the season.

Despite the loss, Decatur’s head football coach, Shane Holland, was pleased with the effort that the 21-man squad showed during its fi nal game.

I was proud of their effort,” Holland stated, “I thought we played really hard, we competed through the entire game.”

The Bulldogs defense played hard during the game with the Rattlers. Matt Lee, defensive lineman, in his last game with the Bulldogs, gave his best performance, making several key hits to prevent the game from becoming a blowout.

Holland was quick to pointout two other outstanding performers for the Bulldogs defense.

“Meng Vang had a lot of plays as linebacker,” Holland recalled, ” Terry Kell, at defensive end, made some really big hits and caused fumbles. We moved him from safety to defensive end. I think it has been a good move.”

Allen Castaneda, who was Decatur’s leading running back, injured his knee early in the game and did not play the rest of the night.

“It wiped out our running game,” Holland said. “We ran the ball a lot behind him this year and it makes it tough.”

The offense struggled through the Leftwich defense. The Bulldogs could never shake the inconsistent play they have suffered throughout the season. The loss of Victor Urquidi as quarterback before the season, and his brother Mario in the game against Mountainburg, crippled the offense. While Decatur had a greatrunning game, the lack of a passing game severely hurt the offense.

The only score for the Bulldogs came on a touchdown run by Tony Mendoza, wide receiver. Decatur added two more points for a total of 8.

With the end of the junior-high season on Nov. 8, Holland was able to take 12 ninth-grade players to Leftwich. Leng Lee, however, was the only one that got play time with varsity team.

The varsity Bulldogs ended the season 2 and 8 over all and 1 and 7 in conference play this year.

“It was a disappointing season,” Holland refl ected. “We had some injury problems and I think that contributed to some other problems we had.”

One problem the Bulldogs had this year was size of the Decatur players. Holland has already devised a battle plan to fix the size issue.

“We conceive going into next year that we are really, really going to have toget into the weight room,” Holland said. “We can’t do anything about growing huge guys out of small guys, but we can definitely put on some pounds and defi nitely put on a lot of strength by going into the weight room.”

One advantage Decatur has going into next season is the 12 sophomores moving into the varsity ranks. Decatur will lose only fi ve players to graduation. That translates into a bigger team next season. A bigger team creates competition among players to hold their position, something that this year’s team seriously lacked.

All these factors working together may make the Decatur Bulldogs a force to contend with in the 2014 season. Only time and hard work will tell the story in August 2014.

The Bulldog junior high team fared much better, ending their season with a victory over the Leftwich Rattlers 26 to 8 on Friday at Bulldog Stadium.

The JH Bulldogs playedtough throughout the entire game, making few errors along the way.

Leng Lee led the scoring with three touchdowns and a two-point conversion. On one of Lee’s touchdowns, he broke four tackles, zigzagging from sideline to sideline before finding a hole and making it into the end zone.

“Leng Lee made a lot of big plays for us in special teams and on offense like he has all year,” Holland said.

Jaffett Puga was the only other player to score against the junior Rattlers.

The junior high defense also played well against Leftwich. Defensive backs Taylor Haisman and Anthony Diaz made two key interceptions to close down the Rattlers passing game.

“We didn’t win a lot of games, but we really improved throughout the course of the year,” Holland said. “We start a lot of guys early in the year that have never played football and that group was a lot of fun.They seemed to get better as the year went on.”

Holland will have a lot of new players moving from the seventh grade to junior high team next year. Many will have at least a little play time under their belts. Like a potter molding a fine bowl out of a lump of clay, so Holland will attempt to mold hard working, enthusiastic players from inexperienced youth.

Sports, Pages 9 on 11/13/2013