The Jourdanton Indian defense had a great outing in Natalia last week. The Tribe allowed only one touchdown in the dual contest against the Mustangs and the high flying D’Hanis Cowboys. ERIC SMITH | PLEASANTON EXPRESS The Tribe is back and ready to attack in 2012. Despite losing the majority of their skilled positions last season, Jourdanton showed plenty of positives in Natalia last weekend. On the minds of many Indians was the loss of one of their athletes fathers who was a huge J.H.S. fan. With him on their mind, Jourdanton came out and gave the effort he would have wanted them to. The Tribe will now turn their focus to the Mustangs from Nixon-Smiley, as they square off in the final scrimmage of the season this Thursday at Indian Stadium.

Natalia Dual Scrimmage- The Indians visited Mustang Stadium for the second year in a row, but this time for scrimmage action. The Tribe was up against a newly re-vamped Mustang squad who was missing a number of athletes due to a church retreat. Aside from Natalia, they also faced highly touted D’Hanis who had a gunslinger at the QB position.

“Overall I thought that we got a lot good out of the scrimmage. Just the fact that we went against other teams was a positive for us. It was a rough week for us with the events that occurred. We didn’t play with a whole lot of emotion, but that was understandable. When it was all said and done, we were able to see who needed more work,” stated Jourdanton Head Coach, Wayne Johnson.

The Indians offense was able to score once on the Natalia Mustangs and once on the D’Hanis Cowboys. Defensively, J-town gave up one long pass against D’Hanis and gave up 0 points to the Mustangs.

“I can tell offensively we are going to depend on our running game. We didn’t throw the ball but three or four times the whole scrimmage. I thought our running game looked pretty decent though. In our passing game, we have a lot of work to do still,” Coach Johnson stated.

Anytime you face Natalia and D’Hanis and give up only one touchdown combined, you must be on the right track. Keep in mind, this is after only returning three starters on the defensive side of the ball. This is when you know your sub-varsity teams’ success has paid off early on.

“Defensively I was really pleased. The front seven did a really good job. We gave up a couple of passes that we shouldn’t have. Hopefully we can get better in the secondary. I was pleased with our run defense,” Coach Johnson added.

Nixon-Smiley-This week, the Indians turn their attention to the Nixon-Smiley Mustangs who enter the season where they are picked to finish in the middle of the pack in 15-2A (Div.II). The Stangs will return seven starters on both sides of the ball, from a team who finished 5-5 and missed the playoffs by one game.

“Nixon-Smiley is going to run a similar defense as to what we saw in the scrimmages. We have to get a little better blocking. We are also going to work on our passing game this week. As far as our defense is concerned, we will have to completely change our game plan, because Nixon- Smiley is going to line up and run the ball at us out of their “Wing-T” formation,” Johnson added.

This season the Mustangs are picked to finish in 5th place behind Poth, Stockdale, Karnes City and Dilley. The Stangs are picked to finish ahead of Cotulla, Natalia and Bloomington according to most football polls.

As far as standouts go for the Mustangs, they are led by their stud offensive lineman Logan McCain who stands 5’9” and weighs in at 245. They are also looking for Miguel Hernandez to carry the offense on his back at the runningback position. After that, the Stangs will look to younger Jv players to get the job done.

The Indians and the Mustangs will kick-off at home on Thursday with the Jv game at 6:00 p.m. and the varsity at 7:30 p.m.

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