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39 With his final completion of a scintillating performance, Bastrop quarterback Josiah Monroe gave the Bears a stunning road win and altered the outlook of the District 25-5A race.
A scrambling Monroe found Josh Taylor behind the Chap defense for a 66-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter that helped give the undefeated Bears (5-0 overall, 3-0 district) a 24-21 win over Westlake (4-2, 2-1) at Chaparral Stadium. The play capped a spectacular game for Bastrop’s diminutive dynamo of a quarterback, who had 255 yards and three touchdowns through the air and 62 yards on the ground.
Monroe’s final score also added a shakerful of salt to a Westlake squad wounded by squandered opportunities.
“We had our chances,” Westlake offensive tackle Phillip Reed said. “We just didn’t get it done. It’s frustrating.”
Those chances came in Westlake’s usually reliable kicking game. Kicker Cody Rademacher missed a 27-yard attempt and a 46-yard attempt against a stiff north wind in the fourth quarter, and those misfires didn’t help the Chaps build on a 21-17 lead that they held for much of the second half.
With the loss, Westlake fell a game behind first-place Bastrop and Austin High for the lead in the district race. The Chaps host Connally next week.
The Chaps, who trailed 17-14 at the half, dominated the ball for much of the second half. They ran 20 plays compared to six for the Bears in the third quarter and seized a 21-17 lead on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Tanner Price to Collin Shaw early in that period.
Bastrop, however, refused to fold despite suffering two second-half turnovers to the ballhawking Chaps.
Any questions about the validity of Bastrop’s perfect record dissipated during a fierce first-half battle. Westlake took advantage of the wind to control the field position in the first quarter while running all 11 of their plays in Bastrop territory. The Bears held firm and gave up just a 9-yard touchdown run to Price that gave the Chaps a 7-0 lead late in the opening period.
Bastrop responded with an 11-play, 59-yard drive capped by a 30-yard field goal from Lee McMillan. On Westlake’s next possession, the Bears recovered a Chap fumble on a mishandled attempt at a double-reverse at their own 36-yard line.
Four plays later, Monroe rolled left and laced a 16-yard scoring pass to Auston Shipley.
Westlake bypassed any trick plays on its next possession. The Chaps ran 12 consecutive times on an 80-yard march that ended with a 1-yard sneak by Price with 3:47 left in the half.
That left plenty of time for Monroe to lead the Bears on a 13-play drive capped by a fourth-down touchdown catch by Adam Mack with eight seconds left in the first half.
Van Gramann grinded out a career-high 112 yards on 29 carries to lead Westlake’s ground game. Price threw for 167 yards and a touchdown and added 69 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.
As a team, Westlake tallied 343 yards of offense, compared to 327 for Bastrop.
I admire and respect Westlake. The Chaps are well drilled,disciplined and well coached. Their fans are a class act. The football gods smiled on us that night. Bastrop is a diverse community in regards to income and racial makeup and for us to compete at our current level is a tribute to the coaches just hired in the last 2 years. The past mind set and expectations in Bastrop have been eradicated by the coaching staff, thank god. Now our young men know that effort begats results, that a professional coaching staff is key. No past coaches have contributed to this team success this year, only this staff has. Westlake still sets the example for success in the long run, it is my hope Bastrop can emulate Westlake in that regard.
Five out of six stories in the Picayune are on football. And we wonder why other students and parents alike get frustrated?
It is NOT all about football. Can the Pciayune help our kids to understand that? Or will our kids keep showing us the paper to prove their point? Can’t argue.
Agree with you, taxpayer.
Give me a break taxpayer! It’s not a newspaper’s job to make kids understand anything. It’s also not a newspaper’s job to make them feel good about themselves. That’s where parenting comes into play. Maybe you should have this argument with the Eanes School District.
GMEN111: Interesting point, but I disagree. It is not about asking the newspaper to make a child feel good. It is about asking a newspaper to represent all sports and not show a ridiculous amount of overreporting for one sport which annoys the heck out of many kids and parents alike in this area. It is too bad that children have to go off into the real world to see what sports are like in the real world because they can’t get a good view of it from our little Westlake bubble.
Luckily we are good parents of 4 very athletic children in 3 schools in Eanes. None play football. We don’t rely on the Picayune for balanced reporting and we just accept that our kids will learn from seeing what things are like in the real world.
So give us a break and let us voice our opinions about the bigger picture. I’m not surprised someone would get offended about a criticsm involving football!! That is typical. Point well made “taxpayer”.
Come on taxpayer…that’s the “nanny-state”, politically-correct garbage that is leading this nation down a one-way track to raising a bunch of softies. I’m sorry you don’t like it, but you live in a football state and are surrounded by people that enjoy the passion that a community can show when rallying behind a football team. Don’t like it???? Start your own newspaper and write about whatever you want.
Wow. Don’t say anything to promote other sports around here or you get mean football fanatics goin nuts.
” Nanny state”? What? Sure going off on a political tangent there. I’m conservative, by the way, and I disagree.
I think the request is reasonable. A little more reporting of what the majority of students do in athletics. The majority are not in football. So, how about some reporting that doesn’t favor football so much? Is that so damn offensive to you folks that know little else?
We do not have another local paper, unfortunately, just like we do not have a choice with the American Statesman, unfortunately.
Love football? Great, then pay for it. The public education system should not be funding your passion.
I agree with “taxpayer”.
Uh-oh. Taxpayer has a good point. But taxpayer, you may just have to keep it to yourself. I just heard from an upset WSH teacher about how Eanes was going to have to lay off some teachers, or at least discussing it. This just after hiring a slew of highly paid football coaches. Priorities are quite clear.
Taxpayer, unless you get your priorities in line with the football mentality here, no matter how logical and level headed you might be, it just doesn’t matter. You must make football YOUR priority or shut up, and in the meantime get ready to shell out more of your hard earned money for school bonds.
Tell your kids that it is just life in bubbaland.
Spondulay: I dont think there is anything wrong with showing passion for football, there are just other sports that deserve attention. It is immature to tell someone to start their own newspaper if they have a concern with the reporting. You sound quite selfish and narrow-minded and are off base in making it political. Grow up.
And what about academics? Funny how that isn’t even mentioned in this discussion. I personally care far less about all the sports than I do academics.
Maybe taxpayer should quit reading the Picayune or sign his kids up for football—either one of those work for me—whatever you do, wear red and support the team.
My initial comment was in response to the Sports Page being too much a single sport commentary on this webpage. I did not mention academics because I was commenting on this section of the paper.
Frank Furter, I’m thinking that “taxpayer” can do whatever he wishes and doesn’t need your help in selecting reading materials, crafting comments, selecting activities for his kids, or choosing which colors to wear. In other words, it’s not all about what “works for you”. And it’s not all about football.
It is outrageous that they cover a storied football program during football season…who do they think they are any way? By the way Taxpayer, you might ask yourself where most of the funds for the extras in all of the sports programs come from…where you ask. How about Chap Club membership fees that come primarily from football families…and that’s a fact. Thousands and thousands of dollars every year hit most or all of the other sports generated by these two sources of funds, which until this year were untouched by the football program. You may want to just Shhhhh.
O c’mon weiner man, it’s also the season of several other sports. Or did you not know that? Covering football is not the issue, it is HOW MUCH coverage and at what expense to coverage of all the other sports.
And another thing: have you thought that maybe other sports might become more “storied” if they had some attention? If all the little jocks think football is the only thing, that is all they will know to do and want to play. That is why there are so many of them standing on the sidelines chewing on their mouthpieces. Send ‘em over to another sport and think outside the little rectangle.
I also thought it was cross country season, and volleyball season, and tennis season, and lacrosse season, and golf season, and swimming season, and……
You say quit reading the Picayune because it doesn’t have enough coverage of what the rest of our kids do? What does the editor think of that? Would he want to lose readership to support narrow reporting for selfish football fanatics like Frankie Furter?
By the way, my kids are VERY good athletes at WHS. One will be playing for Div I team in college next year. AND I am offended by the comments of the “love every bit of football or go somewhere else” mentality displayed here. Frank, don’t you have something better to do than criticize others who may enjoy reading about football AND other sports that our kids are involved in? Maybe it is just a matter of an itty bitty weenie mentality.
Frank Furter: Your comment is loud, proud, and woefully uninformed.
The Chap Club is gaming the system; no secret there. They collect all the proceeds from the jumbotron, the sale of stadium parking spaces, and advertising signs posted on public school grounds. It wasn’t that long ago our trustees and school administrators sold us a bond package and purchase of the 500k jumbotron by promising voters the advertising proceeds would support teacher salaries…..what happened? Did the Chap Club also donate to the high definition video equipment just purchased to upgrade the jumbotron and sports broadcasting or was that another example of re-allocated bond money?
As for sport coverage, I’d love to hear about the cross country, golf, tennis,swimming, tennis, and volleyball teams.
I’m uniformed? You make me laugh—bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah—If you can switch off of PBS long enough, watch ESPN this weekend and see what they show. You put oars in the boat that floats—Enough said on this subject—now go blow it out your tennis racket or ice skates and those of you that think competitive cooking should get better coverage, you can blow it out your spatula or whatever…over and out.
Guessing Frank never made it off the bench back in the day, and there’s no benefit found in his attempts to Monday morning quarterback on this blog. I wonder who Frank is really running interference for. Perhaps Frank/Rex, (or whatever name he chooses to post under next week), should take a knee, head for the sideline, or to take an early shower. He’s fumbling.
Frankie must have been bullied as a child. Let’s be understanding of his shortcomings and anger.
Funny, picayune does mean “of little importance.”
I understand that Chaps Club IS supported by families of other athletes as well, not just football. I have supported it for several years but have grown tired of that. I also understand that not a single cent ever went to one sport my child participates in until just this year.
So, Frank Furter, get your facts straight. My Chap Club membership had not benefitted my child’s sport.
And other athletes parents help out in the concession stands, not just football parents.
I’m not going to SHHHH. Your arrogance and ignorance, Mr. Frank Furter, makes it quite easy to prove our point.
I understand the WHS Freshman Boy’s cross country team is currently ranked 4th in the state! Quite an accomplishment, especially for a sport that gets little attention at WHS.
If it had more attention and reporting, maybe there would be excitement that would help bring more kids to the program. Maybe then it would lead to more “storied” sports at WHS.
Will there be a report on this cross country future championship potential? A 4th ranked group of freshman?
I’m sure the Frank Furter feebleminded one will also think running is not a sport either. What a wimp.
I did not intend to start something this contentious. If the Picayune can give a more balanced look at other sports that would be great. Right now, it looks like there are more stories on what the other 90% of our kids are involved in.
I don’t believe Frank Furter should be telling us what he thinks we all should be playing and watching and doing, and I don’t agree with his narrow view of our world, or his telling us what should be important to the rest of us. But some people are just that way. He can blow off steam at us in the stadium we all funded.
Rex, Oh I mean Frankfurter –
Welcome back! It’s so much more fun when you’re doing your Rush Limbaugh thing. Surprisingly, I pretty much agree with your opinion that the amount of football coverage is appropriate. My kids have excelled in other sports, and they’ve received plenty of coverage. Now the frustrating part about agreeing with Rex/Frankfurter — he’s a one man PR machine for the other side.
Eanes mom: Is there really a reason to encourage Rex’s – er – Frank’s obnoxious and immature and close-minded behavior towards sports that are played at our high school? The amount of football coverage is ridiculous for the many of us who would like to see reporting on other sports which stories are cut down and names left off on page five because there isn’t enough room because there had to be six or seven stories about a single football game.
Give the rest of us a break.
There’s plenty of room for all of us to express our diverse opinions. You’re no better than Rex when requesting that only your opinion be expressed. Surely, you’re better than that.
Ouch.
I give up.
Hot dog y’all are being ruff on Rex…I’ve always found him to be handsome, articulate and fair minded…frankly, like Westlake’s offensive line, you should lighten up on the little feller. Rex, I’m in your corner…you might even say, two dogs in the same bun.
I thoght I was done. Rex, I must say you are amusing. I don’t agree with you but at least you have a sense of humor. You too, Frank.
Sense of humor? Only if you think condescension is funny.
First of all, there is no such thing as state rankings in freshmen sports. The ignorance of some on this message board is quite astounding. Secondly, I only read the online version of this newspaper and have only seen one story per week for football…just like I see one story for every game/competition for other sports. I’m sorry some of you hate that football is king in Texas, but it is a fact. Westlake is extremely successful in multiple sports. However, that success would be hard to come by if it weren’t for the amount of money that football brings in. Griping about coverage is one thing, but some of you need a reality check.
Yatzee:
Let’s have civil, grown up discussions. It is amazing how a simple point made about a lack of news on some high school sports has led to these comments.
1. From what I understand there are rankings done by sports organizations that are not “offical state” rankings. Not in football but in some other sports. It is a matter of reading up on other sports… please, don’t have a fit about it or call people names.
2. The number of stories online has not been one story per week on football. Last week there were five out of six, just like was stated in the second post. Maybe it is you that needs a “reality check” as you say. Right now the coverage is quite good on other sports. A nice change.
3. I don’t thnk most people HATE that football is “king” in Texas as you state. If the Picayune wants to go a little overboard on the football coverage, I guess it is a small price to pay to get people like you to be quiet and be happy and well-behaved. Maybe the Picayune has no choice based on the what I’m seeing here. He who screams loudest…..
4. The money from football SHOULD help to offset what the taxpayers paid for at the high school. This money should go back to the classrooms and to other sports. Football is supported by the taxpayers, the jumbotron was paid for by the taxpayers and the money was supposed to go back to the entire school to support children of, well, taxpayers.
Some of the commenters may want to think about their bullying attitudes what this shows readers. I do think students read this. Be aware of that and be nice.
And that is indeed—–Yahtzee!!
Yatzee
Go to TXRunning.com. They rank all the XC teams in the state from freshman, sophs, juniors, and seniors. The Westlake freshman boys team is currently ranked 4th in the state behind Cedar Park, Georgetown and Houston Jesuit Strake.