Yoemen Sports Network

Dede Westbrook continued his incredible streak of offensive performances this past week at Texas Tech.  The senior caught another nine passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns versus the Red Raiders to improve Oklahoma to 5-2 on the season.

Westbrook had been hampered by a muscle injury in the early portion of the season, but the speedy receiver has accumulated 776 yards and 10 touchdowns in Oklahoma’s last four wins over TCU, Texas, Kansas State and Texas Tech. 

Westbrook scored three touchdowns and set a school record with 232 receiving yards versus Texas. 

Westbrook’s 930 total receiving yards has propelled him to fifth in the nation for all FBS receivers.  The leader, Trent Taylor of Louisiana Tech, has 1,143 yards.  The senior’s 10 touchdown catches is good enough for a tie for second in the country. 

Oklahoma’s remaining schedule:

For a lot of teams, there is that time in the season when the light switch turns on.  Cameron, which was coming off of a tough 80-54 loss to arch rival Rockdale just a week ago, was in a position where a response was needed.  

On senior night from Yoe Field, Cameron (7-2/3-1) lit up just about every light possible in a crushing 63-0 victory over the Academy Bumblebees (4-4/1-3).    

"We had a good week of practice," said Yoemen head coach Tommy Brashear.  "Our kids tend to usually respond well.  I thought we executed well on offense, defense and special teams.  We really focused hard on doing that.  We got beat in all three phases of the game last week, so we talked about taking pride in whatever you do.  We say our program is based on three things: class, integrity and total effort.  I felt like we played like that tonight."

Lady Yoe pick up win in final stretch of season

The 2016 Lady Yoe Volleyball season has been a learning experience under first year head coach Kamol Nohe.  District records are not exactly where the team would like them to be, but continuous improvement has been a key point all season.

The ladies had picked up their lone win of the district season in Hearne last month. After Friday’s tough loss to rival Rockdale, the Lady Yoe built some more confidence with a 3-0 sweep of Hearne on Tuesday. 

Rockdale

In Friday’s road match at Rockdale, the Lady Yoe battled to take a set, but ended up falling three sets to one: 19-25, 22-25, 25-15, 17-25. 

Cameron’s Savannah Kruse had one of her best matches of the year, getting across 17 kills to go along with 17 assists.  The senior also had 11 digs and one block on the night.

After coming off one of the most unpredictable losses of the year last week to Rockdale, the Yoemen will return home on Friday in hopes of rebounding against the Academy Bumblebees.  It will also be the home finale for Cameron and the last game on Yoe Field for the class of 2017.  

Throughout the non-district schedule, it appeared that Academy was going to have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs out of one of the toughest districts in the state.  However, since their district opening win over Jarrell (29-22), the Bees have struggled with Rockdale (56-13) and Troy (31-20) to fall to 1-2 in 10-3A play.

In non-district action Academy was 3-1 with wins over Rogers (34-0), Whitney (29-20) and Goldthwaite (21-14) and one weather shortened loss to Comanche (19-14). 

This history of the Battle of the Bell dates all the way back to 1954.  At that time, Sandow & Southern Railroad Co. donated the first bronzed prize to be awarded to the winner of the annual Cameron and Rockdale football game.  That bell lasted all the way up until 2001 when it was officially retired. Shortly thereafter, thanks to a $2,500 donation by the late Catherine Thomas, a C.H. Yoe High graduate, a brand new bell was made available.

The second bell had run its course and the booster clubs from both Cameron and Rockdale were in talks about purchasing a new one.  Those talks quickly ended when AJ Hommann, a member of the Cameron community for 23 years now, decided to donate his own bell.

Hoffmann, which is from Mount Pleasant, has worked at Charlotte Pipe in Cameron for over two decades.  During that time, he has built many relationships within the community, which includes Bill and Tommy Harris.

The Yoe cross country program has a long-standing tradition of sending runners to the regional and state meets.  That tradition will carry on in 2016.  Jose Osorio, which finished fourth in the district meet on Monday in Cameron, will be representing the Yoemen at the regional meet at Sam Houston State on October 29. 

Osorio, which finished with a time of 18:08.5, was in fifth heading down the final stretch towards the finish line before making a late push to get into the top four. There were a total of 40 varsity runners. 

“It wasn’t a great for us team wise, but Jose Osorio ran real good,” said Yoemen head coach Dale Keen.  “What I liked about his performance more than anything is he could have been satisfied with fifth, but he ran hard and finished fourth.”

Little River Academy (4-3/1-2) Vs. Cameron Yoe (6-2/3-1)

Everything that could have possibly gone wrong in last week's 80-54 loss to rival Rockdale ended up happening.  The Yoemen committed over 100 yards in penalties, had critical turnovers, had special teams mishaps and had a hard time containing the speed of Rockdale defensively.  This is a very critical stretch for the Yoemen.  Improvements are expected as this team has the capability of putting it together to finish off the regular season strong and have another deep run in the playoffs.  Academy was overwhelmed by Rockdale, but did have a two-touchdown lead on Troy before the Trojans made a run late to win.  The Cameron defensive front will need to have a good game as Academy operates out of the I-formation and is going to try and pound the rock most of the night. 

Josh's Pick: Cameron Yoe by 28+. 

Around Milam County

On Friday night, the Cameron Yoemen scored 54 points.  If you would have told the Yoemen faithful that was going to be the number before the opening kickoff, pretty much everyone would have told you it was going to be a good night.  

However, as most fans of the Battle of the Bell also know, the rivalry is always intense and can, at times, be unpredictable.  That would be the best way to describe the 62nd edition of this Milam County tilt, as Rockdale scored a total of 12 touchdowns in an 80-54 shootout victory.

"It didn't go very well for us tonight," said Yoemen head coach Tommy Brashear.  "We did some good things at times, but we made a lot of mistakes.  Rockdale is a very good football team.  They have a lot of players on the field that are good, and you cannot make those kind of mistakes.  We had way too many penalties and you cannot do that against a good football team."

On Friday night from Tiger Stadium, the Cameron Yoemen and Rockdale Tigers will be going at it in the 62nd edition of the Battle of the Bell.  In 2014, the Yoemen lost the bell to Rockdale before winning the more important game during the state quarterfinals en route to the third consecutive state championship.  Cameron proceeded to take the bell back in 2015, 27-6. 

This year’s game will be as big as any other as neither team wants to lose to their arch rival.  Yoemen head coach Tommy Brashear played for the Yoemen in the 90s.  He now gets to lead the team as the head coach.

“I think the Battle of the Bell is huge,” said Brashear.  “It’s huge to me and it means a lot to this community.  I know when our 7th graders play for the first time versus Rockdale, they are pretty nervous because they know that it’s a big game.  They know we have to beat Rockdale.  It is expected.”

If the playoffs were going to be in the Lady Yoe’s future plans, victories over Jarrell and Lexington were crucial.  The ladies sat at just 1-7 entering play last Friday, so a long stretch of wins was needed to get back into the playoff hunt.

The ladies had shown glimpses of solid play through parts of district, but Jarrell and Lexington proved to be too much, easily getting by Cameron in straight sets. 

Jarrell

Cameron fell to Jarrell on Friday from Yoe Gym, 16-25, 16-25 and 10-25.  Kenzie Wimmer and Savannah Kruse tied for the team lead in kills at five. 

Darci Denio had six assists while Wimmer and Carley Tucker each had five.  Jazmin Vaculin had 14 digs on the evening.  Wimmer had two aces.

Other results included Rogers earning a 3-0 set victory over Hearne while Franklin also swept Rockdale.  Lexington clipped Academy, 3-2.