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Tag: Vandegrift Vipers

Vipers edge out Dragons

Written by Steven Ryan on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

Round Rock proved a worthy challenger for Vandegrift’s District 13-6A throne, but the defending league champs got a stellar game out of senior quarterback Dru Dawson and made a couple key defensive stops in the final frame to maintain their supremacy with a 32-25 win Friday at Monroe Stadium in Austin.

“We needed this,” said Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders. “This is good development for us, and I told the guys all week that this is going to be a playoff atmosphere. This is going to be like a 4th round 6A playoff game, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Dawson completed 17-of-20 passes for 275 yards with four touchdowns and an interception while adding 69 yards with his legs in by far his best game of the year. He also made a pair of big plays on a fourth-quarter touchdown drive to push the Vipers ahead for good.

After a 19-3 mid-game run allowed Round Rock to take a slim one-point lead, Dawson heaved a deep ball in stride to junior wide receiver Taylor Dumar for a 39-yard gain to the 15. Three plays later, he scrambled around to give his guys extra time to shake free and found senior tight end Brady Middleton wide open in the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown. 

“His improvement just continues to go up, and up, and up,” Sanders said. “He was so accurate tonight. He made one bad throw the whole night, really. Other than that, when he couldn’t throw it, he took off and ran. He had several nice runs for us, too. And then on the sideline when we had a little of that lull… I heard him over to the side talking to his guys and encouraging them, and that’s just what I need from my senior quarterback.”

Round Rock rolled up 348 rushing yards and 23 first downs, by far the most Vandegrift had given up in either category all season. But the Vipers succeeded in their game plan to take senior wide receiver Collin Sullivan out of the game. The Division I signee (Purdue) finished with just one catch for nine yards (albeit, a touchdown).

“We were not going to allow them to big-play us,” Sanders said. “We were going to bleed a slow death and our philosophy worked.”

After retaking the lead with Dawson’s fourth quarter heroics, Vandegrift’s defense stepped up on consecutive possessions with a three-and-out and a fourth-down stop in the red zone. 

“We’ve been in kind of an odd front the last several games. We had to go back at key points in our game and go back to our even front on defense, made some adjustments there and stopped them,” Sanders said. “A critical stop that we had that we needed, was because we went back to something we’ve been doing for years. We just haven’t done it much this year.

“It was nice to see us be able to adjust and do it immediately. Our kids, I always tell them, their secret weapon is how smart they are, and they were able to really adjust to what we were doing and make plays. It’s hard for a defense, when you stop everybody all year long, and you come against an offense like this, that is scoring on you, it’s hard for you to not get down on yourself, and those guys found a way to rally, keep themselves mentally pumped up, and find a way to win.”

The offense proceeded to run the final 5:21 off the clock with some bruising runs by junior running back Bowen Lewis (24 carries, 118 yards, 47-yard TD reception), a fantastic catch on a deep ball by senior wide receiver Trey Mongauzy (7 catches, 132 yards, TD, 32 yards rushing) and pivotal seven-yard run on third down by Dawson.

“Round Rock is going to have a great rest of their year. Hopefully, we do, too,” Sanders said. “To be able to win a third or fourth round 6A playoff game, like what tonight was, that just speaks volumes to our kids, coaches and everybody else.”

Vipers beat Raiders

Written by Steven Ryan on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

This story has been written before, and will likely be written again. Vandegrift’s mighty defense went up against a high-scoring offense, and like it usually does in these situations, shut it down. The Vipers used a solid game plan, maximum effort and near-flawless execution to keep Vista Ridge (4-1) off the scoreboard for the first two-and-a-half quarters in a 31-12 win Friday at John Gupton Stadium in Leander, TX.

“We knew we’d be depending on our defense tonight,” said Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders. “We felt it was strength versus strength because they came in averaging over 40 points a game and for us to do what we did tonight, shut them out in the first half really I thought set a tone to our guys. We had a great week of work. We didn’t play particularly well last week in a win over Hendrickson and everybody kind of got down on us. I think the kids took that personal, came out and played really well tonight.”

The outcome might’ve been different if not for some costly mistakes by the Rangers. Vista Ridge marched down the field on its opening drive before Vandegrift stiffened up right before the goal line. Facing 4th & goal from the 1, the Rangers surprised the Vipers with a perfectly drawn up pass play. The execution fell short, however, as the wide receiver dropped a ball that hit him right in the numbers. On the ensuing possession, Vandegrift punched the reeling Rangers right in the mouth with junior running back Bowen Lewis (23 carries, 170 yards, 1 TD) breaking loose for a 48-yard score.

“We worked all week on our train check,” Sanders said, “which is the adjustment to their big, heavy set, and we executed it to perfection, and so I was really pleased to see that. It was first & goal from the 1, and it just shows a lot of guts on our defense to, first of all, do what you’re coached to do and then stop them four downs in a row. Huge credit to our defense, just unbelievable heart.”

The Rangers also had two back-breaking mistakes on special teams and a pair of lost fumbles, while Vandegrift played a clean game with zero turnovers and only two penalties. Vista Ridge had a deep snap sail over its punters head to set-up a five-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back Ryan Sheppard to open the second quarter. 

“That’s kind of what our defense does, it makes plays, and then our offense is opportunistic, and it’s also very specific and organized, and they do a great job of making the plays count,” Sanders said. “We’re not a super explosive offense, but we’re a very efficient offense that gets things done and it’s a recipe for winning ball games… I don’t know how people view us, but I think as I look at my own team I see us as a team that plays really sound, fundamental football. We don’t make many mistakes. We play good defense, we play efficient offense, we play solid special teams, and I think we’re a tough out for anybody we play.”

A lost fumble later in the period gave the Vipers another short field, which they took advantage of as senior quarterback Dru Dawson (8-for-13, 82 pass yards, 2 TDs, 48 rush yards) hooked up with senior wide receiver Trey Mongauzy for a 14-yard score. Vista Ridge opened the second half with another botched punt snap. The Vipers scored three plays later with Dawson finding Mongauzy (3 catches, 46 yards, 2 TDs) again to make it 31-0 and send the more casual fans scrambling to their cars.

“We get a great week of work in. We trust our coach’s game plan. They work really hard to put a great game plan in and we stay locked into the game. Good things happen when we stay locked in,” said senior defensive end Matthew Graham. “We (the defensive line) are not the biggest, but we play really hard, we believe in each other, we believe in our D-line coach, who’s an awesome guy, and we’re relentless. We always find a way.”

Rodney Vincent Vista Ridge Head Coach Talk with us on The Friday Night Countdown before facing the Vipers Defense.

Vandegrift beats Cedar Ridge

Written by Steven Ryan on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

Vandegrift allowed its first score of the season, but that was it as the Vipers corralled Cedar Ridge’s all-everything running back Duece Vaughn in a 28-7 victory Friday at Dragon Stadium in Round Rock.

“How you control someone like Duece Vaughn, because he’s a generational talent, he’s that good, is more than one person,” said Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders. “So we found a way tonight to get more than one person to the point of attack. So when he looked up there were two or three Vipers there, and that’s a credit to our coaches for great schemes and our players for executing.”

Vaughn, a dynamic 5-foot-7 dynamo committed to Div. I Kansas State, was contained to 118 total yards (99 rushing, 19 receiving) after going for more than 200 against the Vipers last season. The rest of the offense produced just 99 as Vandegrfit held Cedar Ridge to 217 yards on 50 plays for 4.3 yards per play.

Senior linebacker Jax McCauley was all over the place, as usual, but it’s always a team effort with the Vipers. The secondary held Cedar Ridge quarterbacks to 9-of-19 passing for 87 yards (4.6 yards per attempt) and intercepted a pass. Meanwhile, the defensive line was in the backfield all night with Matthew Graham, Jordan Cochran and Rickey Sweeney leading the way.

“Our D-line over the years, if anybody watches us, is kind of our calling card,” Sanders said. “We have a bunch of guys who aren’t super impressive physically, but we put just great athletes that our kinda strong there and we use (that) they are faster than the offensive lines. So that’s what we do well and you saw that on display tonight. Hopefully we can keep doing that, and then as the game went on, we increased our pressure because we felt like they were getting more tired and we just rotate a bunch of guys. We have a bunch of guys that go in. We have like five or six guys that can play and you can see the freshness as the fourth quarter happened.”

Vandegrift stole the momentum early when McCauley recovered a blocked punt in the end zone on the first drive of the game.

“We worked that all week. We found something studying tape,” Sanders said. “My special teams coordinator Coach (Ed) Wolkind found something so we worked all week that block. I told everybody we were going to go for that very first punt. To get it is fun for the kids to be able to do that, what a great start for us to be able to go three & out, blocked punt for a touchdown. It’s about as good as you could do. We just kind of sent a message that, you know what, last year wasn’t a fluke. Hopefully, we’re here to stay.”

From there the offense grinded Cedar Ridge down with the run game and hit on three big pass plays to put the game out of reach. Junior running back Bowen Lewis rushed for 107 yards on 22 carries, his third straight 100-yard rushing game, and hauled in a 47-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter.

Dru Dawson and Taylor Dummar celebrate one of their 2 TD strikes in Friday Nights victory over Cedar Ridge of Round Rock in the handsome win 28-7. Photo Jenna Friedrich for Texas Sports Monthly

Junior wide receiver Taylor Dummar had the other two touchdowns. He got wide open for a 40-yarder in the second quarter to put the Raiders in a 21-0 hole and then made a more contested catch on 3rd and 10 in the third quarter for a 31-yard score that re-established Vandegrift’s 21-point lead. Senior quarterback Dru Dawson finished 7-of-12 for 153 yards with the three touchdowns and one interception.

“It started with our run game. Our run game opened up our passing and our coaches put in a good game-plan. It’s pretty easy for me when the guy is wide open,” said Dawson. “We put in a lot of motions and shifts that get the defense to change and that’s one of our pride and joys and it came out tonight and worked really well… Very proud of our team but we have so much potential to show. So that’s the exciting thing, but it was a great win all-around.”

Vipers shut out Timberwolves 17-0

Written by Steven Ryan on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

No. 2 Vandegrift started its season right where it left off. The Vipers delivered a dominant defensive performance, just like they did so many times last year, in a 17-0 shutout of No. 6 Cedar Park at Monroe Stadium on Friday in Austin.

“It’s impressive,” said Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders. “My defense surprised even me tonight because we replaced a lot of guys. We didn’t have everybody back. We replaced several guys on the defensive line, both corners, replaced a safety and replaced a linebacker, and for us to come out and play like that is just total belief in our system, and they really played with great effort.”

Vandegrift held Cedar Park to 140 yards on 49 plays for 2.9 yards per play and completely stuffed the ground game for two yards on 24 carries. Going back to last year’s matchup, the Vipers have kept the Timberwolves off the scoreboard in seven of eight quarters.

Cedar Park didn’t even cross midfield until the fourth quarter and needed a fake punt to do so. Junior defensive back Kaleb Lewis had two interceptions, the second of which came in the end zone late in the game to extinguish the Timberwolves’ best scoring threat.

“Our coaches really drilled it into our head to stay in coverage and a lot of those two plays were (Cedar Park quarterback) Ryder (Hernandez) scrambling around and I just kept my eyes on him and read his eyes, and when he threw it I was just sinking into place,” Lewis said. “It was just super exciting because I get to trust all those guys and I really trust them and you can tell with how we all play and communicate and I was just in the right position because we trust the coaches and they gave us good play calls.”

Vandegrift leaned on two players for almost all of its offensive production with junior running back Bowen Lewis and senior wide receiver Trey Mongauzy combining for 252 of the Vipers’ 275 total yards. Mongauzy broke the Vipers out of an early funk by breaking free for a 59-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter and finished with 10 grabs for 125 yards. Lewis iced the game with a 54-yard scoring burst in the final minutes while posting 127 yards on 23 carries.

“That’s a play we ran against Klein Collins in the second round (of the playoffs) last year and I caught it for a lot of yards. (Cedar Park) is super aggressive and they tried to undercut, so just putting a double-move corner-post on them, we knew it was going to work,” Mongauzy said of his score. “Just a lot of studying. Throughout the game, we were finding holes in their defense and we kinda just attacked them. We found good rhythm and were just hitting everything.”

Vandegrift follows its resounding season-opening win with a Thursday night road game at Killeen Ellison next week. Cedar Park will hope to rebound with a home game against Round Rock Cedar Ridge on Friday.

Drew Sanders Vandegrift Vipers 2019 Preview

Written by Tucker Stephenson on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

AUSTIN — The current era of football has become known as the golden age of offense.

However, Vandegrift head coach Drew Sanders isn’t ready to concede anything to the high-octane, spread-it-out attacks that have been piling on the points across the Lone Star State.

“We take pride in our defense at Vandegrift,” Sanders said. “We had the No. 1-rated defense in our district last year and we’re excited to see if we can do that again. It’s definitely a challenge. Every team we play has one to two to even three Division I players on the offensive side of the ball.”

The Vipers emerged as the District 13-6A champions last season behind a stingy defense that held opponents to a mere 13.8 points per game before allowing 56 in a third-round playoff loss to Longview. Vandegrift, which went 12-1 overall in 2018, will look to once again put the clamps on its district foes this season and will be led by all-state linebacker Jax McCauley, who made 156 tackles as a junior.

Sanders said McCauley is the complete package.

“Jax’s effort is tremendous,” Sanders said. “He never takes a play off, and because of his great effort he’s always around the ball because he’s equipped with some size and speed. Then there’s his preparation. The guy studies the game — he will actually watch tape every day of his opponent and will report back to us on what he finds out.”

McCauley is one of several returnees to the defensive side of the ball in 2019, along with defensive end Trevor Harrison and defensive backs Tyler Mongauzy, J.J. Parker and Kaleb Lewis. Sanders said junior defensive back Logan Arnold may also join the mix this season to add even more ability to the back end of the Vipers’ defense.

“Our secondary will be very experienced and athletic,” Sanders said. “We’ll have to replace some losses at linebacker and defensive line, but we feel good about the guys we have coming up.”

On offense, Vandegrift welcomes back quarterback Dru Dawson and his top target — wide receiver Trey Mongauzy. Junior running back Bowen Lewis, who is Kaleb’s twin brother, looks primed to step into a starting role. Sanders also said sophomore wide receiver Blake Youngblood could make his presence felt on the outside.

Up front, the Vipers have a pair of all-district offensive linemen in Harry Witt and James Collyer, who will try to pave the way for another balanced attack. Last season, Vandegrift averaged close to 200 yards passing and rushing in each contest while scoring just over 31 points per game.

Those impressive numbers helped the Vipers put together the best season in program history, but Sanders said no one is looking too far ahead as his squad prepares to tune up for an encore performance.

“We’d love to have continued playoff success, but in order to have playoff success, you’ve got to get there,” Sanders said. “A state championship is still the ultimate goal for us and we talk about that. We haven’t been there yet. We’ve been in the third round several times, the fourth round and even the fifth round one year, but we’ve had a hard time trying to get to that state game, so we’re striving hard to do that.”

The Vipers will once again compete against eight other foes in 13-6A. The field includes Cedar Ridge, Hendrickson, Round Rock, Stony Point, Westwood, McNeil, Leander and Vista Ridge.

Sanders said it certainly won’t be smooth sailing, but he also acknowledged one advantage of being in such a sizable league.

“Because you’re in a nine-team district, you can lose one and be a district champ,” Sanders said. “It isn’t just a top-heavy district — everybody is pretty good. You’ve got to make sure your preparation is really on point because you only have a couple of games to prepare for the ones that matter.”

Vipers Strike Hawks in Win

Written by Steven Ryan on . Posted in HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL.

Many pundits thought the District 13-6A title would be decided between Pflugerville Hendrickson and Round Rock Cedar Ridge on Oct. 12. But that game might not matter at all after Vandegrift followed last week’s win against Cedar Ridge with a 29-20 upset of highly-touted Hendrickson Friday at The Pfield in Austin.
“All I know is we’re 2-0,” said Vandegrift coach Drew Sanders. “We’re just going to take them one at a time but that’s a really good team we beat… so that’s a great feeling.”
The Vipers had fourth down at the Hawks’ nine-yard line with a six-point lead and barely more than two minutes remaining when a lightning delay sent the teams to the locker room for more than an hour.
Sanders kept his team fresh by feeding them Uncrustables and bananas and senior kicker Tim Barney kept his mind off the potential game-icing field goal by listening to rap music, specifically XXX.
Barney got to practice the kick from the exact spot during the 10-minute warm-up period in between the end of the delay and the resumption of play, and then calmly sent the 26-yard attempt through the uprights to send the few Vandegrift fans that stayed through the delay into a frenzy.
“Obviously (the kick) was on my mind (during the delay) but I was just sitting there, listening to music trying to get my mind right,” Barney said. “It felt amazing just to seal that win. It was a great win. We’re 4-0 now so we’re just going to keep it rolling.”
Hendrickson’s defense suffocated its first two opponents – Texarkana Texas High and Round Rock Westwood – in dominating victories. But Vandegrift found a way to handle the Hawks’ nasty unit.
The connection between junior quarterback Dru Dawson and senior wide receiver Ryan Merrifield was working all night. Dawson completed 17-of-24 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown with no turnovers. Nine of those completions – including the touchdown – went to Merrifield for 144 yards.
“Coaches put in a great game plan and we had a great week of practice and we knew what we were doing and executed really good,” Dawson said. “Everyone just brought their A-game today. Even though we were playing Hendrickson, we stayed locked in the whole game and I’m just super proud of our team.”
While playmakers tend to get the headlines, nothing would have worked without the exemplary play of the offensive line who kept Dawson upright against a terrifying pass rush and did enough in the run game to help senior running back Isaiah Whitehead gain 65 yards on 24 carries, including a 28-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.
“Their defensive line is tremendous,” Sanders said. “When you look at the size of those guys and how hard they play. They’re well coached. So (I’m) just really impressed with our ability to just move the ball some against them, and overall I thought we did well and we had very sustained drives, too.”
The Hawks aren’t the types to make excuses, but it was clear they didn’t bring their A-game. They had a number of back-breaking penalties including a roughing the holder that gave Barney a second chance to ice the game after missing a 38-yard attempt. They also turned the ball over five times while Vandegrift didn’t give it up once. 
One of those turnovers was an unprovoked fumble near the end of the half that was picked up by Vandegrift junior defensive back Ryan Arnold and returned 27 yards for a touchdown that made it 23-6. Hendrickson also fumbled a snap on fourth-and-one from its own 19 in the fourth quarter. That play didn’t count as a turnover because it was recovered by the Hawks, but nonetheless gave the Vipers the short field they needed to hit the game-clinching field goal.
“We call them takeaways because we forced their hand on that. We did some run stunts that they hadn’t seen before so I’m proud of our guys for executing what we worked on all week,” Sanders said. “The biggest difference in the game tonight was our defense. We consistently did what we needed to do.”