By DARIN ALLRED
Register Sports Editor
Playing in District 9-3A is tough, but when you are a young football team and you lose key members of your squad to injuries, it becomes even tougher. Just ask the Gainesville Leopards.
Gainesville (5-4 overall, 1-3 district) will wrap up the season Friday with a road game against the Class 3A Division I defending state champion Prosper Eagles, and they will do it without four key players.
Four weeks ago, the Leopards lost senior running back Deshawn Franklin to a knee injury. Since then, the Leopards have struggled offensive, scoring 14 points or fewer in all four of their district games.
But the training room got a little more crowded after last week’s 38-14 loss to Argyle as Harold Wills, Calvin Calhoun and Cody Welch all left the game with injuries.
Wills has bone chips in his hand, Calhoun has an infection in his hand after getting a gaping cut that had to be stitched up, and Welch has a hip pointer.
So one week after facing the No. 5 team in the state, the Leopards get another ranked team Friday.
“We get to play No. 8 this week. It's a big challenge,” Leopard head coach Ricky Lock said. “It will be senior night there. We have four kids that are not going to play because they are hurt so we've got some injuries to deal with. Two of those guys start on both sides of the ball. We got pretty beat up in that Argyle game. It was physical.”
The Leopards couldn’t get their offense going against Argyle until the fourth quarter when most of the Eagles’ starters were out of the game. Two fourth-quarter touchdown runs by Kielyn Lewis kept Gainesville from being shut out for the second straight week.
On the bright side, the Leopard defense looked stellar against a potent Argyle offense. Gainesville held the Eagles to just 104 yards of total offense.
“Our defense played well we just couldn't get anything going offensively until the end,” Lock added. “Their number ones are pretty good. They have probably the best front seven we have faced all year.”
Despite not getting the win, Lock says his players enjoyed being a part of the final varsity game to ever be played at Leeper Stadium. A fireworks show after the game drew oohs and awes from everyone, even the players.
“It would have been nice to win the game but our kids understood that it would be the last varsity game there,” the coach said. “It was a tough night but the opponent had a lot to do with that.”
Even though they have lost three straight, the Leopards have still improved their record over the last three years. Gainesville went 1-9 in both 2006 and 2007 and was 2-8 last year. They did not win a district game in any of those three years.
“I'm proud of them. We are 5-4 right now and they have made a lot of improvement,” Lock said. “We are not where we want to be or need to be, but we have made a lot of improvement. We obviously play in the toughest 3A district in the state of Texas, so it's a challenge every week. Those kids have played hard and represented their school, community and family really well.”
The coach also sees lots of positives from his subvarsity and junior high teams which will also wrap up their seasons this week.
”I was really impressed with our junior high,” Lock said. “They are improving every week. Our seventh grade is very talented. We have a lot of kids coming back next year on the varsity. This was their first action on the varsity level and some of them got thrown in the fire but they did very well. There are a lot of positives to take from this season.”
