Published: August 28, 2008 01:59 am            

Westwood set to start season in Chapel Hill

Panthers looking for a little payback against Bulldogs

By SALLY SEXTON

H-P Sports Writer



It will be a battle of the experience Friday night when the Westwood Panthers take on Chapel Hill in Tyler Friday night for both team’s season opener.

Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.

“They’ve got around seven starters on offense and seven starters on defense coming back from last season,” Westwood head coach Kevin Anderson said. “We’ve got some experience too with 17 seniors on the team, and hopefully they can give us some good leadership Friday night.”

Based on what he’s seen during scrimmages, Anderson said that even though the Bulldogs’ offensive and defensive lines are a little bigger than the Panthers, it won’t have an effect on Westwood mentality.

“They’re an athletic team and they’re big and strong looking,” Anderson said. “But we’ve played bigger teams and we know what we can do.

“We’re certainly not intimidated.”

In last year’s matchup, Westwood led 12-7 at halftime, but Chapel Hill came back to score 20 in the fourth quarter to defeat the Panthers.

“We had them during the first half last season, but we kind of let things slip and had a bad fourth quarter,” Anderson said. “I guess we kind of feel like there’s some payback and retribution.”

The Panthers begin the season on the road and playing on turf, something which they are more familiar with this year.

“We’re going into a hostile environment and it’s going to be hot and we’ll be playing on their new turf,” Anderson said. “I don’t think it’s going to be an issue because we played on turf against Diboll in the playoffs last year and in Fairfield during 7-on-7 this summer, so we kind of have an idea, but they might have just a little advantage.”

Defensively, Westwood’s main goal is to shut down the Bulldog’s top rusher, Mathew Tucker, who had over 2,000 yards and 28 touchdowns last season. Tucker had 269 yards and two touchdowns last season against Westwood.

“Tucker is probably going to get his carries, but we are going to try to contain the yards he gets and eliminate the big plays,” Anderson said. “If we can make them throw the ball and shut down the running game, we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

The offensive game plan for the Panthers will depend on Chapel Hill’s defense.

Senior D.J. Morrow will start off at the quarterback position, and could possibly play at running back for some plays during the game, according to Anderson.

Morrow had 11 carries for 74 yards at running back last year against the Bulldogs.

“The plan is for D.J. to play quarterback, but he could easily switch to running back. We’ll just have to see how it plays out,” Anderson said. “Basically, we want to complete short passes, block and protect the football.

“It’s nothing we haven’t done in the last two years I’ve been here.”

With Friday being the start of the season, Anderson is hoping his team can get off on a positive note by winning.

“The first game of the season is always big and we would like to set the tempo with a victory,” the Westwood coach said. “We have won road games before and we feel like we can play with the best of them.

“We’re looking forward to a good ballgame and it will probably come down to the team that makes the least mistakes.”

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Sally Sexton can be reached via e-mail at sports2@palestineherald.com

        

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