Before Boerne Champion could focus on Smithson Valley, their opponent on Oct. 23, the Chargers had to face Seguin Friday at Boerne ISD when they hosted the Matadors in a district contest.
The weather was bad but that didn’t stop the Chargers from scoring in all four quarters and defeating the Matadors, 57-7.
Now the Chargers (7-0, 5-0) can give their complete attention to Smithson Valley. The two-time state champs will host Champion on Friday, 7 p.m.
Champion and SV are both undefeated this year, so one of the teams will suffer their first loss, and Chargers coach Blane Ellis said they’re looking forward to the matchup.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to mix it up with Smithson Valley,” he said. “This game has been circled on everybody’s calendar for a year, and it goes without saying it’s a big game.”
Even though the wind was howling and the feels-like temperature dipped to the mid-40s during Friday’s contest at BISD Stadium, the Chargers went into the wind on its first drive and scored on two plays. Ryder Flugence threw a 76-yard completion to Zachary Lopez on the first play. Flugence then hit Lopez on the next play for a touchdown and it was 7-0 less than a minute in.
Ellis said they don’t worry about the weather.
“We don’t talk about it, if you talk about things like that, you make it bigger than it is. We went into the wind in the first series and attacked it and threw into it. That’s who we are and that’s what we do,” he said. “We don’t make much of the weather because we can’t control it. We don’t play it up and talk it up because we don’t want them to overthink it.”
Flugence capped the next two Champion drives with TD runs of 39 and 71 yards to give the Chargers a 21-0 lead by the end of the first quarter after Ethan Haines booted all three extra points.
While the Chargers scored three times going into the wind in the first quarter, they struggled with the wind at their back in the second stanza. They went for it on fourth and goal at the 5 and didn’t score, and later in the quarter, they gave the ball back to their opponents after a Seguin punt hit a Charger player in the back and the Matadors recovered near midfield.
But Champion’s defense kept the shutout intact going into the break after Michael Guerrero blocked a punt that led to a safety. Caleb Farias also scrambled in on a 25-yard run to make it 29-0 at halftime after they missed the extra point after the Farias run.
Ellis said his defense has played great this season.
“A lot of people talk about our offense but defensively we’re getting after it, and we’re playing suffocating defense,” he said. “I can’t speak enough about our defense.”
Once the second half started, the offense went to work right away. Farias bolted to the end zone on an 81-yard sprint on their first play from scrimmage and it was 36-0.
Later in the quarter, Farias made another house call and scored on a run of 23 yards and the lead ballooned to 43-0.
After a fumbled snap on a Seguin punt attempt, the Chargers took over on the 17 and Flugence tallied his third TD of the night with a short run to match Farias, who had three rushing touchdowns, and it was 50-0 late in the third.
Ellis probably could have kept the shutout going but started moving players in and out and said it was more important for his younger players to get experience than it was to keep the shutout.
“We’re not defined by a shutout,” he said. “They’re cool when they happen, but if you look at our body of work and what the Chargers have done all season long, our defense is tremendous.”
The Matadors punched it in on a Daniel Pinon run of 10 yards to make it 50-7 with 5:28 left in the game.
Champion responded after Finn Ryan capped the scoring after he caught a pass from Julian Navarrete of 57 yards with 5:06 left to push the lead back to 50 points. After that, the Matadors turned it over on a loss of downs and the Chargers ran out the clock.
