Yoemen Sports Network

For fans of the gridiron, it will be a long and sometimes-grueling seven months before 2-a-day practices get underway in preparation for the start of the 2017 Texas high school football season.  

You will typically see the first projections of the year in the summer month of June, but I'm going to take a look at some of the numbers now - just a short few weeks after the completion of the state championships. 

10-3A has always been regarded as one of the toughest districts in all of 3A football.  In fact, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football rated the district as the toughest in the state for any classification before the start of the 2016 season.  

Well, here is how it played out.  

By Josh Pratt

Staff writer

In February, the Yards of Cameron was officially introduced to the community as one of the top state-of-the-art outdoor sporting facilities in the country.  Less than a year later, there is already a new feature addition coming to the entrance of the park.  

On Friday, December 16, a large crowd gathered at Founders Hall to celebrate the unveiling and dedication of the 4-6-3 Double Play monument.  The twice life-sized figure is a one of a kind piece of art that all future visitors will see as they make their way inside the complex.     

The monument was designed by Robert Hogan and was made possible through donations from the Fisher and Pemberton families.  

“This would have not happened without the generosity of the Fisher and Pemberton families,” said Bob McClaren, president of the Cameron Future Foundation.  

After dropping the district opener to Academy, the Lady Yoe were looking to pick up their first district win of the year versus Jarrell or Hearne.  

Jarrell

The Lady Cougars are regarded as one of the top teams in the state.  For two quarters Cameron was able to stay competitive, but Jarrell proved to be too much in the second half and walked out of Yoe Gym with a 62-35 win.  

Jarrell would go on multiple scoring runs in the first 16 minutes, but the Lady Yoe always had an answer to keep the game within single digits. Cameron trailed by just 11 at the half, 31-20.  

"Our girls came out fighting and I felt like they could compete with a team of Jarrell's caliber and they did just that the first half," said Cameron coach Corey Cunningham.  "We never took ourselves out of the game that first half."

This past weekend, the Yoe High wrestling teams competed in the Doc Hess Invitational Tournament in Bryan.  The day ended up being a strong success for the program, as two boy wrestlers won their division and another finished within the top five.

Senior Rico Bolivar won the 120-pound weight class.  Joe Uvalle, another senior for the Yoemen, placed fifth within the same division.  Alfredo Ramos finished fourth in the 160-pound class. 

 Freshmen Dominique Borgas won the 200-pound class in the rookie division.  The newcomer to the program pinned all four of his opponents to capture the championship. “It was for wrestlers where it was the first year for them to wrestle,” said Keen, who added that was exciting for the program.

Caleb Mueck also competed for Cameron.  “My boys wrestled really well.  It was really outstanding.”

As 2016 comes to an end and 2017 begins, the winter sports season will soon be in full swing in Cameron.  Basketball and wrestling has been in progress for a number of weeks now and soccer will be joining that group at the beginning of January. 

Yoemen

The Yoe soccer team - headed by Kevin Webb - will enter the new season with a roster that will have a mix senior leadership, but overall will be young, as five starters will have to be replaced. 

Benny Paredes, Xavier Torres and Noah Kostroun are three seniors returning to help lead the newcomers to the roster.

As a junior, Paredes was arguably the Yoemen’s most valuable player, earning a first team all-district selection out of 26-4A. 

Yoemen coach Ed Glendening knows that it’s very difficult to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders in every non-district contest. 

Tuesday’s road game at Caldwell appeared to be one of those instances, as the Hornets jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first period and went on to hold off the Yoemen late to win, 51-44.

“We just came out flat,” said Glendening.  “We told the kids we were going to come out and work on some things for district.  We ran multiple defenses and all of our stuff and we were down 19 points and we were flat.”

The loss breaks the win streak for Cameron (11-2) at six.  Caldwell (5-9) picks up their first win over Cameron in three tries. 

The most anticipated basketball tournament of the year will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday as teams from all across Central Texas and beyond come to Cameron for the Chamber of Commerce Christmas Classic. 

The tournament is now in its 19th year and will once again feature 12 boys and 12 girls teams.  Pool play will commence on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. and will go on through Wednesday night when the final game tips off at 7:30 p.m.  The regular high school gym, old high school gym and junior high gym will all be utilized. 

Boys

Pool A: Bartlett, Cameron, Marble Falls

Pool B: Giddings, Holland, Australia

Pool C: Caldwell, Taylor, Whitney

Pool D: Shoemaker JV, Smithville, Snook

Girls

Pool A: Cameron, Elgin, Palestine Westwood

Pool B: Iola, Rosebud-Lott, West

Pool C: Florence, McGregor, Snook

Pool D: Australia, Holland, Travis

With the 2016 season for class 3A-Division I football finishing today up at AT&T, I would like to reflect back on Coach Tommy Brashear’s first season as the leader of the Yoemen. 

Following a number of successful years as a top assistant, he stepped right in Rock Rhoades’ shoes and became the third-best first-year coach in history behind only Toby York’s state Championship in 1981 and Randy Sapp’s debut season in 1996 (12-2).

With their 11-3 finish this year the Yoemen overcame a couple of bumps losing to China Spring, Rockdale and Malakoff in the regional finals. But looking closer China Spring and Malakoff each bowed out of the playoffs last weekend in the semifinals with (14-1) records. Rockdale went out a week earlier, losing to Malakoff and finishing a great 12-2 year.

Mineola (13-2) Vs. Yoakum (11-4)

Last week, I had picked Wall and Malakoff to advance to the state championship game and neither of those projections came to fruition.  Mineola dominated the Wall in every phase of the game in a 50-8 win.  This Yellowjacket team has dominated the past two weeks.  In addition to the walkover of Wall, Mineola won their regional final over Pottsboro in similar fashion, 46-3.  Meanwhile, Yoakum pulled off the upset win over Malakoff in the semifinals, 28-24.  When Malakoff was clicking, they were able to strike with big plays.  While Malakoff did struggle offensively in that game to execute, you have to credit Yoakum in limiting those explosive plays.  Both Mineola and Yoakum are run-heavy, so this will be a big test for each defensive front. 

Josh's Pick: Yoakum by 1. 

Iraan (15-0) Vs. Bremond (15-0)

For the first time since the 2011 season, Coach Ed Glendening and the Cameron Yoemen have had the opportunity to play a non-district schedule.  The previous four seasons have seen the football team playing for a state championship, which in turn left basketball no time to prepare for the start of district.

The full compliment of players is already paying dividends as the Yoemen managed to go a perfect 4-0 in last week’s Thorndale tournament.

Cameron defeated tournament host and Milam County counterpart Thorndale in the opener, 58-44.  The Yoemen had balanced scoring across the board.  Newcomer Levi May finished with a team high 15 points.  Kevondre Wesley had nine while Danny Perez finished with eight.  All 11 players - about half of which saw their first action of the year - saw significant playing time.