By Jason Orts Tribune-Herald staff writer

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Forgive Mark Waggoner if he’s experiencing a little deja vu. Just last season, the Reicher coach and his team were 3-4 entering the district slate, a mark that had surely been hurt by losing quarterback Kenneth Cluley for four games with a broken leg. But once Cluley returned for district play, the Cougars caught fire.

They manhandled all three of their district opponents before rolling through the playoffs — winning their four postseason tilts by an average of almost 32 points per game, including a 49-17 drubbing of district rival Austin Regents to give the Cougars their second straight TAPPS Division III state championship.

Fast forward to this season, and Reicher is exactly where it was through six games a year ago at 3-3. The reasons for Reicher’s mediocre early record this season are different. Last year, it was mostly the Cluley injury, while this season, it’s inexperience and trying to come together with Matt Hicks at quarterback that have held Reicher back. “It is a similar feeling to what I had last year,” Waggoner said. “The sense of loss isn’t there like it was when Kenneth went out. The sense of finding our way like we were then was there.”

But the question remains the same — Can the Cougars come together and make a run at yet another state title, which would be the school’s ninth? It’s hard to blame the Cougars for their three losses. Reicher, a school with an enrollment of about 220, ran into trouble finding schools its size to play and ended up with a schedule that featured Fort Worth Nolan, a Class 4A-size school, and Canton and Houston Episcopal, both of which have 3A numbers.

“A lot of our guys play both sides of the ball,” Hicks said. “And a lot of teams that we played early in the season have two hours of offense or two hours of defense in practice. They have a lot more depth, so it’s just hard.” When they’ve been able to pick on teams their size, the Cougars have had success with wins over Corsicana Mildred, Hitchcock and Bosqueville.

Reicher will face one more larger school in Cedar Hill Trinity Christian, which reached the state championship game in TAPPS Division II last season, on Friday before it hopes to begin a repeat performance of last year’s run through district and the playoffs. “I like to play tough teams — not that tough though, ” Waggoner said. “We ran into a real scheduling nightmare because we just couldn’t find people who would play us, whether it was I was too late on calling or the people we were playing dropped us. I realize we’re going to take a loss or two. It exploits your speed at different positions because they have speed at every position. So we feel like it really benefits us.”

And after a pair of wins over Hitchcock and Bosqueville, it appears as if the Cougars are starting to find their way on both sides of the ball. Hicks, who is playing for the second perennial power of his high school career after transferring from China Spring, is leading the Centex charts with 908 yards and 12 touchdowns on the ground. He’s also thrown for 513 yards, but there’s room for improvement as he’s hit on 41 of his 87 attempts.

One advantage Cluley had was an absolute terror of a running back in Ross Rasner, who was also the heart and soul of the Reicher defense and is now playing linebacker at Arkansas. Garlin Gonzalez will get his first action at running back of the season Friday, and Waggoner hopes the 220-pounder will take some of the pressure off of Hicks.

Matt Pineda is trying to fill Rasner’s shoes at middle linebacker, and he said he considers that challenge an honor. “Ross was a really good player, one of the better ones we’ve seen come through Reicher,” Pineda said. “For the coaches to say they wanted me to take his place and fill in for some of the things he was doing, that is a big compliment.”

Without Cluley, Rasner and a host of other weapons the Cougars lost to graduation, such as receivers Stephen Harrison, Nick Castillo and Jameson Wells, Waggoner admits Reicher has to rely more on driving the ball down the field instead of the big play. But with all-state center Lance Tepe anchoring the line on both sides of the ball, Reicher might just be more physical this season than last. Tepe’s gunning to end his high school career with his third state championship ring.

“Last year, it was you want to win state, but you also wanted to win it for the seniors,” Tepe said. “This year, it’s you want to go out on top, so there’s just as much motivation this year as there was last year.” While the Cougars are happy with their front seven, they know the secondary must improve. Waggoner said the depth of Reicher’s opponents put him in a bind where he had to sit some of his best defensive backs to keep them fresh on offense.

Rami Tamimi leads that unit, which could be the final piece the Cougars need to come together to claim their third straight crown. “The secondary needs to step it up, but (the Bosqueville) game showed we are getting there,” Tamimi said. “I think we have a shot at winning state. I won’t say we’re going to, but that’s definitely our goal.”