GRASS IS GREENER ON NEW KISD FIELDS:

Grass Is Greener On New KISD Fields

By Nick Georgandis

Sports Editor

The Katy Times

August 17, 2003

Rams, Tigers enjoying new surfaces as season nears

For the Mayde Creek High School football team, a squad with a worse injury history than Jeff Bagwell, Mike Munchak and Fred Taylor combined, previous football seasons have had them green with envy at other schools' practice fields.

The green remains off of Groschke Road this August, but in a much more positive hue.  Mayde Creek had a crisp green new practice field put in over the summer and the effects have been noticeable since Day One.

"When they re-did the playing fields four years ago [1999], they used stuff from under our parking lot as the top soil," Mayde Creek head coach Joe Sheffy said.  "We haven't let a player dive for a ball in four years.  My legs would hurt after a couple of days just walking on that stuff."  [Coach Steffy is talking about the "new Astroturf" provided by the 1999 bond!MM]

It's a whole new ballgame for Sheffy's Rams in 2003.  They and Katy High School both have new practice fields.  Cinco Ranch and Taylor had their fields redone in the summer of 2002.

The recent heavy rains and a problem with the sprinkler systems had Katy's fields looking more like swampland on the sidelines, where standing water and mud ruled over grass and chalk.

Nevertheless, the Tigers were enjoying their new fields as they made the transition to full-contact practice sessions on Friday.

The new or almost-new fields at all four schools not only help with practice, but also with on-campus sub-varsity games.

The field will also serve as contingency hosts for Katy and Taylor's scrimmages.

Both squads are scheduled to employ Rhodes Stadium on Saturday, August 23 for preseason scrimmages.

As of Wednesday, work still needed to be done on the new playing surface at the KISD home stadium, leaving those game sites in doubt.  [Recall that KISD didn't get the stadium playing fields ready in time in the 1990's either! MM]

Since its last playoff appearance in 1997, Mayde Creek has had a rash of injuries during the preseason and non-district campaigns, a large percentage of them leg injuries.

Sheffy could not discount a sub-par playing surface as a contributing factor in the team's bad luck in the training room. [Kudos to Coach Sheffy for saying anything at all about the Astroturf!  He could have gotten fired for saying what he did. MM]

There is so much pounding on players' legs," Sheffy said.  "One year we had four different guys with a tibia injury.  In my 27 years before that, I'd never even had ONE!" 

All four squads donned full pads on Friday for contact.  All four also have their first and only scrimmages scheduled for next Saturday.

Mayde Creek will travel to Cy-Falls High School at 9 a.m. Saturday for its scrimmage.

Taylor will host Humble, presumably at Rhodes Stadium, also at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Mustang head coach Bill Lane said the Mustangs and Wildcats would move the game to Taylor High School if the stadium turns out to be unavailable.

Cinco Ranch will take on Fort Bend Bush on the road at 11 a.m. next Saturday while Katy hosts Klein Oak at 7 p.m., also planned for Rhodes Stadium.

With the quick start to the season, the scrimmages will be vital for all four teams to get the kinks worked out for their season openers.

Playing in the zero week means that Mayde Creek has just five days between Saturday's scrimmage and the team's opener on Thursday August 28 against Klein Forest.

The other three squads have six days between scrimmage and opener.

Cinco Ranch opens at home on Friday, August 29 against Fort Bend Austin while Taylor plays at Clear Lake and Katy at Lufkin that same night.

There will be plenty of new faces on all four squads - no KISD team returns a starting quarterback from last year.

Expected to attain the starting jobs (with last year's starter in parentheses for the four area schools are Mayde Creek's Chad Smith (Brett Zamzow), Katy's Ben Johnson (Adam Vyvial), Taylor's Pierce Daigle (David Halphen) and Cinco Ranch's Austin Morgan (Connor Spitzer).

Cinco Ranch will vie for its first-ever playoff spot after posting a school-best 6-4 record last season.

Taylor and Mayde Creek both seek to break playoff droughts that date back eight years for the Mustangs and six for the Rams.

Katy saw its streak of eight straight district titles snapped last year although the team finished up a game short of playing for the 5A Division II state championship.  [The story is for some reason cut off here in mid sentence!]