After enduring a lopsided loss to the best opponent his team had faced, Houston football coach David Williams had a simple message for his players Monday afternoon.
“We’ll tell them to forget about it and move on,” Williams said.
The Tigers remained winless Friday night with a 61-8 loss to state-ranked Mountain View-Liberty. The defeat was the program’s 19th in a row.
Houston (0-9, 0-7 South Central Association) may be eliminated from the playoffs. But the team still has plenty to play for.
The Tigers have an opportunity to snap their losing skid in Friday’s season finale when they host winless Cuba. Houston’s last victory came against the Wildcats in the final game of the 2009 season.
“We’ll prepare like we always do,” Williams said. “It is definitely a winnable game.”
Houston was simply overmatched against the high-scoring Eagles. They led 41-0 after the opening quarter and had a 388-64 advantage in total yards.
The victory clinched the outright SCA championship for Liberty (9-0, 6-0) and set up a showdown with Willow Springs for the district championship.
“They are a really good team — maybe better than last year,” Williams said of Liberty. “Don’t be surprised if they go deep in the playoffs.”
Houston struggled to move the ball offensively. The Tigers were held to 50 yards rushing and just 14 through the air.
Austin Foster led HHS with 27 yards on 24 carries. Weston Walker had five rushes for 24 yards.
Williams said he instructed Walker not to carry the ball as frequently and not at all in the second half.
“We wanted to get out of there without any injuries,” Williams said.
The one big play the HHS offense produced was negated. Walker faked a handoff to Foster in the second quarter and darted around the left end for a big gain. But the official on the Tigers’ sideline — thinking Foster had the ball — blew his whistle as Walker ran down the field. What would have been a huge gain was instead a 15-yard rush.
The Tigers got their lone points with 4 minutes, nine seconds left in the game when Walker hit senior Jacob Kelley on a 7-yard slant in the back of the end zone. Foster ran in two-point conversion.
Liberty scored just 58 seconds into the game when Walker’s pass was picked off by Kole Gastineau and returned 27 yards for a score. The Eagles added five more touchdowns in the quarter and scored twice in the second for a commanding 54-0 halftime advantage.
Box score
| Houston | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | – | 8 |
| MV-Liberty | 41 | 13 | 7 | 0 | – | 61 |
First Quarter
MV — KoGastineau 27 interception return (Denton kick), 11:02.
MV — Stringer 62 run (Denton kick), 8:49.
MV — JaeAcklin 8 run (Denton kick), 5:50.
MV — Denton 38 pass from KoGastineau (kick failed), 3:23.
MV — French 5 pass from KoGastineau (Denton kick), 0:34.
MV — JaeAcklin 44 pass from KoGastineau (Denton kick), 1:14.
Second Quarter
MV — Stringer 10 run (Denton kick), 8:52.
MV — Smotherman 2 run (kick failed), 0:36.
Third Quarter
MV — Porter 3 run (Denton kick), 0:00.
Fourth Quarter
HOU — Kelley 7 pass from WWalker (Foster run), 4:09.
——
| HOU | MV | |
| First downs | 5 | 12 |
| Total yards | 64 | 388 |
| Rushes-yards | 33-50 | 48-388 |
| Passing | 14 | 87 |
| Punt returns | 0-0 | 3-44 |
| Kickoff returns | 8-60 | 2-23 |
| Comp-att-int | 2-9-1 | 3-4-0 |
| Sacked-yards lost | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| Punts | 6-19.0 | 2-33.0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 3-2 | 1-0 |
| Penalties-yards | 1-4 | 8-55 |
——
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Houston, Foster 24-27, WWalker 5-24, TaSmith 3-6, Merckling 1-(minus-7). Mountain View-Liberty, Stringer 11-128, KoGastineau 4-64, Porter 8-32, Smith 7-30, Smotherman 3-20, Rodriguez 5-11, Postlewait 2-8, JanAcklin 1-3, Daniels 1-3, JaeAcklin 2-2.
PASSING — Houston, WWalker 2-9-1 14. Mountain View-Liberty, KoGastineau 3-4-0 87.
RECEIVING — Houston, Kelley 2-14. Mountain View-Liberty, JaeAcklin 1-44, Denton 1-38, French 1-5.