Preview: San Marcos Rattlers vs. East Central Hornets
The San Marcos Rattlers will be playing at home against the East Central Hornets at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. San Marcos comes in still looking for their first win of the season.
It's never fun to lose, and it's even less fun to lose 45-14, which was the final score in San Marcos' tilt against New Braunfels on Friday. While losing is never fun, San Marcos can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Texas football rankings (they are ranked 762nd, while New Braunfels is ranked 194th).
Meanwhile, East Central's three-game losing streak came to an end on Friday. They walked away with a 28-18 victory over Clemens. The victory was just what East Central needed coming off of a 52-28 loss in their prior matchup.
East Central relied on the efforts of Isaiah Mackey, who threw for 111 yards and two touchdowns, and Austin Vivier, who gained 111 total yards and two touchdowns. Vivier was no stranger to the big play, lighting up the secondary with a catch that went for 63 yards. Kaleb Ramos made the highlight reel by snagging an interception and taking it all the way to the house.
San Marcos' defeat was their seventh straight on the road (dating back to last season), which dropped their overall record down to 0-9. Admittedly, the team was facing some tough opposition over that stretch, including 8-1 Steele and 9-3 Brandeis (their opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 59.9% over those games). As for East Central, their win bumped their record up to 3-6.
San Marcos didn't have too much breathing room in their game against East Central when the teams last played back in November of 2022, but they still walked away with a 20-16 win. Will San Marcos repeat their success, or does East Central have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
