San Antonio-Madison wins first in brutal stretch

Congratulations, Aaron Green and San Antonio Madison, for your nationally televised victory over Malcolm Brown and Cibolo Steele. Your reward? A matchup on a short week with Johnny Manziel and Kerrville Tivy.

By Gaylon Krizak

Aug 31, 2010, 2:20pm

With ESPN's cameras and logo all over the place, Aaron Green did no worse than a draw with Malcolm Brown in Saturday's duel between the two top running backs on the MaxPreps.com 2011 recruiting list.

Madison's Aaron Green.

Photo by Tom Lemming

Green ran for 169 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries as his Madison (San Antonio) Mavericks outlasted Brown's Steele (Cibolo) Knights 28-23. His 68-yard touchdown run not quite four minutes into the fourth quarter gave Madison what proved to be an insurmountable 11-point lead.

Green was named the game's MVP, but Brown still managed to steal the show over the long haul. After being bottled up for 44 first-half yards, Brown unleashed a highlight-reel 88-yard TD run in the third quarter in which he stiff-armed one tackler downfield and essentially shoved another out of the way a few yards later.

Brown, a Texas commit, finished with 179 yards and a touchdown on 25 attempts, along with a 10-yard TD reception.

Still, the night belonged to Green and the Mavericks. But their celebration probably didn't last long.

Next up for Madison is Tivy (Kerrville), the area's top-ranked Class 4A team, led by multipurpose quarterback Johnny Manziel, who has committed to Oregon. All Manziel did last week in the Antlers' 71-3 pummeling of Fredericksburg was run for three touchdowns and throw for four more ... in the first half.

The matchup is in San Antonio, at Comalander Stadium. But it also comes six days after the opener; Tivy opened on Friday and has a full week to prepare. And a Madison defense that was able to focus almost solely on the running game against Steele might have its inexperience put to a tougher test against Tivy's spread and Manziel's versatility.

More top stories from this past week around South Texas:

2. Lake Travis wins game, loses WR: As expected, Westlake (Austin) gave Lake Travis (Austin) a stern test Saturday night before 30,000 at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. The Chaparrals led 21-10 in the third quarter before Michael Brewer and the Cavaliers ended the game on a 22-0 run to win 32-21 for their 47th straight victory. The star was Griffin Gilbert, younger brother of Texas QB Garrett Gilbert, who caught nine passes for 164 yards. But LT also experienced a setback when Tulsa-bound WR Conner Floyd was taken off the field with an apparently severe leg injury.

3. It's not just football: Although it had a disappointing 6-2, sixth-place showing at the Pearland Volleyball Classic, the Lake Travis (Austin) volleyball team is the highest-ranked Texas team in the initial MaxPreps Xcellent 25 at No. 17. The Cavaliers, led by Amy Neal and Sierra Patrick, are 25-2 overall. Also in the Xcellent 25 at No. 20 is Westlake (Austin), which is 14-3 and won the consolation bracket in Pearland with a 5-1 record. King (Corpus Christi) won the tournament, downing Hebron (Carrollton) in the final.

4. Tough weekend at the office: San Antonio's Northside Independent School District has 10 football-playing schools. Two played each other, with 5A Holmes (San Antonio) spoiling the debut of 4A Brennan (San Antonio), 41-0. Of the other eight teams, only one won. Warren (San Antonio) held off Southwest (San Antonio) 14-13; the other seven fell by margins ranging from seven to 21 points. The biggest upsets were Brandeis (San Antonio) losing 21-14 to Johnson (San Antonio), Stevens (San Antonio) falling 28-7 to rebuilding Roosevelt (San Antonio), and Clark (San Antonio) losing 21-7 to Churchill (San Antonio) in the "Gucci Bowl."

5. Outside Austin/San Antonio: Class 2A Refugio (No. 1 in Division II) recorded an impressive 50-28 victory over Rice Consolidated (Altair) (No. 9 in Division I) in a matchup of teams in the preseason Texas Football state top 10 ... At the Texas Football Classic in San Antonio's Alamodome, Gregory-Portland (Portland) picked up a thrilling 30-29 victory over Port Neches-Groves (Port Neches) on Jimmy Salinas' 38-yard field goal with 5:57 left. Also Saturday in the Classic, Foster (Richmond) defeated Hanks (El Paso) 42-20, and Harker Heights downed Georgetown.

TOP PERFORMERS
(non-Aaron Green/Malcolm Brown/Johnny Manziel division)

* Connor Sheehan (Anderson (Austin)): Did a little bit of everything in the Trojans' 48-34 victory over McCallum (Austin), scoring touchdowns on a 70-yard interception return and a 50-yard run in addition to kicking three extra points.

* Nathan Webb (Harlingen): Made an impressive starting debut aT quarterback, throwing for 192 yards and a touchdown in addition to running for 120 yards and two TDs in the Cardinals' 46-7 rout of Lopez (Brownsville).

* Michael Brewer (Lake Travis): Texas Tech-bound QB rebounded from a slow start and threw for 289 yards, ran for 50 more and accounted for two TDs in LT's 32-21 victory over Westlake.

COMING ATTRACTIONS
Among this week's key events ...

* In addition to Madison-Tivy, top football games include Leander at Judson (Converse) in a matchup of highly regarded teams that suffered Week 0 losses; Harlingen at Carroll (Corpus Christi), in which a pair of high-powered offenses will be on display; and Calallen (Corpus Christi) at Gregory-Portland in a clash between suburban Corpus Christi powers.

MY $.02 WORTH
I am fine with nationally and regionally televised high school football, but aren't these out-of-state games starting to lose their lustre? I'm not talking, say, some team in far East Texas vs. someone in far West Louisiana. I mean games between teams in Texas and Florida, or Texas and Washington or others of the like. Once an interesting novelty, such games now are so commonplace that, for example, Abilene plays more non-Texas non-district foes (three) than in-state competition (two). I'm sure game sponsors pick up some, if not all, the tab for such trips (although, again using Abilene as an example, none of those five games is outside the state), but in economic times such as these, what kind of message do these expensive intersectional excursions send?

Gaylon Krizak is, for a couple more weeks, a freelance writer in San Antonio. Contact him at grkinsa@gmail.com.
24-14.

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