Bears travel to Houston

Little Cypress-Mauriceville played its second straight rivalry game last Friday. The result was better for the Bears as they get prepared to play a private school out of Houston this week.

The Bears came off their loss to West Orange-Stark two weeks ago and traveled to Bridge City to play their longtime rival the Cardinals. LCM scored early, was tied by the Cardinals in the second quarter, before the Bears scored the last 34 points in a convincing 41-7 victory.

Coach Eric Peevey was happy to see his star player Da'Marion Morris have his normal standout performance on offense and defense. "He had over a hundred yards rushing, about 50 to 60 receiving, a big interception and other great plays on defense," Peevey elaborated.

The offensive line for Little Cypress-Mauriceville played well. The Bears had over 480 yards of total offense, 230 rushing and about 250 passing.

What Peevey was not happy about were 12 penalties against the Bears for 120 yards. Peevey recalled, "We couldn't keep away from penalties, even defensively we kept giving the Cardinals new life because of personal fouls, face masks, and this and that. We kept letting them stay in it with these penalties. That's one thing we've got to do as a team is learn how to play football the correct way, and we're getting there."

Basically, every game so far this season has been a road game for Little Cypress-Mauriceville with the renovations to Battlin' Bear Stadium nearing completion. This week the Bears have a long road trip to Houston to play the private school the Kinkaid Falcons.

The Falcons are the defending champions in their private school division. Kinkaid lines up in the Spread or will shift into a heavy set formation.

The whole Kinkaid offense revolves around speedster Micah Bell who rushed for 1200 yards and ten touchdowns last season. Bell has committed to play at Notre Dame upon graduation from Kinkaid.

With a star back like Bell on the other side, the Bears will focus their attention defensively to stop him. "We want to make sure Bell doesn't have any explosive plays," Peevey stated.

David Capobianco is the returning quarterback for the Falcons. Capobianco passed for 2,119 yards and 28 touchdowns in 2021. He has two quality receivers returning from last year in Harrison Lawrence and Nico Gomez.

Kinkaid obviously has the tools to pass the ball but the Falcons will likely dance with the back that can bring it. Peevey explained, "They'll come out with six or seven linemen and really try to snap it directly to Bell and let him get behind the big boys and run, the same thing we saw against West Orange-Stark with the Wildcat. I'm sure Kinkaid saw that film and that's something they're going to want to do."

Blitzing is a main ingredient of the Kinkaid defense. The Falcons use a four-man front, a three-man front, and can get to a five-man front. Basically, every play the Falcons are bringing the heat to the opposing backfield using different blitzes.

Coach Peevey evaluated the Falcons on defense. "They're a very aggressive defense. Last year we kind of made them pay for that. This year we don't know, we just hope our guys can pick it up as well as we did last time," Peevey indicated.

Micah Bell is also a star on defense from his position as safety in the defensive secondary. Peevey praised, "I feel like he's probably their best player on defense."

Another leader on the defensive side for Kinkaid is Read Liuzzi the middle linebacker. Liuzzi anchors the defense for the Falcons.

Friday's game is an important one for Little Cypress-Mauriceville as the first long road trip this season and the game before the bye week for the Bears. Two weeks from now LCM hopes to play its first game on the new artificial turf at Battlin' Bear Stadium.

The Bears would love to win in Houston against Kinkaid before practicing and then playing on their new field. "Kinkaid is a very solid team. They won state last year in their division, I think we were their only loss for the year. The Falcons are struggling a little bit this year but they are playing everybody close. They lost on a Hail Mary to Jasper which is very good. I'm really interested to see how our team reacts with a two and a half hour rode trip. We've been on the road the whole year, but this is our first one where it's two hours away, a pre-playoff type atmosphere. I'm kind of anxious to see how our team reacts, how our team plays with going on the road for that long of a trip getting there and getting their minds right getting them focused. With as many young kids as we have on our team this is really a great experience for us, and we really need to get this win and play better. I really feel like the game with Kinkaid was the turning point last year for us when we were really playing to our potential, and we kind of need to get to that mode before we go into our off week," Peevey concluded.

The Little Cypress-Mauriceville Bears play the Kinkaid Falcons in Houston on Friday night. The kickoff will be at seven.