Published: September 05, 2008 10:05 am         

Area teams ready for second week of season

By Craig Holamon
sports@mineralwellsindex.com

Five high school football teams from Mineral Wells and the surrounding area are ready to play non-district games tonight.

Class 4A Mineral Wells is set to visit the Class 3A Bridgeport Bulls after opening the season with a loss in Glen Rose.

The Millsap High School Bulldogs are set to open the season with a visit to Rio Vista tonight. Millsap had an open date last week.

Class 1A Perrin-Whitt opened the season at home with a 34-26 win over the Class 2A Chico Dragons.

The Pirates are to ready pay a visit to Wichita Falls City View at 7:30 p.m. tonight.

Santo hammered out a 12-0 win at home over the Frost Polar Bears last week.

The Wildcats are set to resume non-district play at 7:30 p.m. tonight with a visit to the Era High School Hornets.

Gordon and Strawn picked up back-to-back wins over state-ranked teams on Saturday and hope to remain unbeaten tonight.

The following is a game-by-game look at tonight’s matchups:

Mineral Wells at Bridgeport

The Rams hope to break into the win column in tonight’s 7:30 p.m. game at Bulls Field.

Rams head football coach David Bourquin said beating he Bulls won’t be easy.

“Coach Danny Henson said he has one of the best teams he has had in years. We’ll have to play well to win,” Bourquin said. “We’re not playing very good football right now. We need to play with more intensity, especially on defense. We’re working hard to get better but somebody has got to step up.”

Santo at Era

The Wildcats hope to stay undefeated with a win on the road over the Hornets.

“We’re working hard to get better, “ Santo head football coach Randy Thornton said. “We’re just playing them one game at a time.”

Millsap at Rio Vista

MILLSAP — The Millsap Bulldogs are set to open the season with a tough game at 7:30 p.m. tonight in Rio Vista.

Millsap head football coach Kyle Coker and five or six of his players traveled to Tolar to watch Rio Vista open the season with a win.

Coker said the Eagles are a physical team that likes to run the ball.

“They looked pretty good last week. They are the best team we’ve seen all year. They are going to try to run right at us,” Coker said. “They have a big old fullback and explosive tailback (Chris Shaner).

Coker said he hopes to force Rio Vista to pass.

“We’re going to have to load up and stop the run and make them throw it. We’ve had two weeks to get ready for this game. We’re ready to go,” he said. “The kids are ready for a challenging game. We haven’t beaten them in a few years. Our workouts have been real productive this week.

Notes ... Rio Vista was 4-6 on the season last year and 0-5 in district play while Millsap was 2-8 overall and 0-5 in district play.

Walnut Springs at Gordon

GORDON — The tradition-rich Gordon Longhorns climbed from 17th to eighth in the sixmanfootball.com Web sites state rankings after a 60-38 upset win over the Valley Patriots in Hico on Saturday.

Beating a speedy team from Walnut Springs at Longhorns Field tonight at 7:30 p.m. could be tough, according to Gordon head football coach Tye Adams.

“They real fast. They are a lot faster than we are. If we play a good game and take care of business we can beat them,” Adams said. “If we play a poor game, they’ll get all over us.”

Prairie Lea at Strawn

The second-ranked Strawn Greyhounds are for real.

The Greyhounds are picked to win tonight’s 7:30 p.m. game at Greyhounds Field against Prairie Lea by 45 points.

DeWayne Lee said his team has had a good week of workouts.

"We’ve got to work from what we did last week and go on from there,” the Strawn coach said. “We had good week of workouts. The kids feel good. We’re very excited and ready to face a challenge."

Notes ... Teams from Mineral Wells and the surrounding area posted a combined 4-1 record last Friday.