By Kyle Roberts
ARLINGTON, Texas — Ruston High School will take its 3-0 record westward for the second week in a row out to Texas; this time for a neutral site matchup against the Midland Legacy High School Rebels (1-3) at Choctaw Stadium for a 2 p.m. kickoff on Saturday.
Ruston High picked up its third win in as many weeks against Longview High School and handed the Lobos their second consecutive home loss for the first time in 24 seasons.
For Bearcat head coach Jerrod Baugh, the tough non-district schedule has given him a good look at his squad with just a couple of weeks before District 2-5A begins play.
“I feel pretty good about where we’re at,” Baugh said. “I think we’ve seen some good things. We’ve found a way to win ball games, and it’s all been in different ways. If you look at the Acadiana game, we had an opportunity to finish the game offensively and couldn’t do it. The defense came out and held them at the end. And then if you look at the Longview game, our offense made a long drive and ate up a lot of clock. Finding ways to win football games is a big deal.
“Negatives — I think we’ve been really inconsistent. We’ve had a lot of penalties, and that translates to a lack of focus and detail. You can’t take your foot off the gas pedal and lose focus, because we’re playing people that are going to go get coached and be ready to play. We’ve got to take that into account and be more consistent about what we’re doing.”
Ruston’s defense held Longview scoreless in the second half after the Bearcats trailed 10-7 at the half. Senior running back Jordan Hayes scored a 59-yard touchdown with 7:25 to go in the third, and senior Josh Brantley scored an insurance touchdown with 2:39 to play in the game to give the ‘Cats the 21-10 win.
And for Baugh, it was the chance to go back to where he spent 10 seasons on the sideline from 2000-2009 as an assistant and get a big win as the head coach.
“That’s a hard place to win,” Baugh said. “They don’t lose many ballgames. And I got to visit with some people that I don’t get to talk with very often. It was good to catch up on some things and have friendly competition. It was good overall.”
The Bearcats will now look to take on the Rebels for a Saturday afternoon kickoff, with a neutral site being the best logistical way for the teams to play as the schools are separated by nearly 600 miles. For Baugh, it was important to fill the week four schedule slot, as not many teams locally were available to play.
“I did not want to go a week without playing a ballgame,” Baugh said. “We talked about a home-and-home series, but I did not want to bite that off in the middle of the season since it would be a ten-hour drive. And (Midland Legacy) is used to neutral site games because when you play in the playoffs in Texas, that’s pretty standard. We looked at a couple different places and settled on Choctaw Stadium, because their coach had a contact there.”
Fans that are looking to travel to the game need to be prepared for possible traffic issues, as Texas A&M and Arkansas will be playing at 2:30 p.m. at AT&T Stadium, which will be close to Choctaw Stadium.
“I imagine traffic could get bad,” Baugh said. “Fans will need to make plans to be there early, because (AT&T Stadium and Choctaw Stadium) share some parking.”
Tickets can be purchased at https://mlb.tickets.com/?agency=MLB_MPV&orgid=3&pid=9459405 or at the Third Base Gate if fans choose to buy tickets onsite.
The game will be broadcast on Q94.1 FM and streamed live on BearcatNationNetwork.com with the pregame show set to start at 1:30 p.m.
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