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Hornets fall to Unicorns




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The East Central Hornets took the short drive up Interstate 35 for their annual District 27- 6A clash against the New Braunfels Unicorns on Friday, Nov. 13. Unlike the past two seasons in games against their foes from Comal County, the Hornets were held in check on offense and done in by a few miscues on their special teams. When the final whistle blew, the final score was 45-14 in favor of New Braunfels.

On offense, senior Cristian Vela made his first career start under center in place of the injured Caden Bosanko. Vela continued to show flashes of his ability as a quarterback, passing for 151 yards and two touchdowns. In the second quarter, Vela was able to connect on his two scores with fellow senior wideout Anston Bryant-Kelley.

The duo connected on the Hornets’ first score of the night on a 71-yard strike that saw Bryant-Kelley show a display of speed as he outran the New Braunfels defenders. They connected later in the quarter on a 21-yard catch and score to cut the lead to 28-14 going into halftime. Despite the positive momentum, this would ultimately be as close as East Central got in the game. Bryant-Kelley finished with 94 receiving yards.

“I thought Cristian did a really good job for us out there,” said East Central Head Coach Joe Hubbard. “I think our main issue was that we could just not get anything going in the running game and on the other side of the ball, we just couldn’t stop the run. The clock got away from us in that second half and we didn’t get too many possessions because they were running it out on us. We had some three and out possessions and before you know it, we just ran out of time.”

In the second half, the Hornets were unable to stem the Unicorn tide and weren’t able to find the end zone again. The Unicorns also held the vaunted Hornet running attack virtually in check, with Vela ending up the team’s leading rusher with 27 yards on 10 carries.

“We know we’ve got a really young group of kids, especially on the defensive side of the ball,” Hubbard said. “They’ve played hard all season, but we just missed too many tackles and made too many mistakes. They know that and we’ll get that cleaned up. We’re really close, we just have to figure out a way to close the deal. We’ll keep working.”

The loss dropped East Central to 1-5 on the year and 0-4 in district play. With three games left on the season’s schedule, the Hornets have a bit of an uphill battle the rest of the way if they hope to get back to their winning ways. They will play their final home game of the season on Friday, Nov. 20, against the first-place Smithson Valley Rangers. Kickoff at Hornet Stadium is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

wcnsports@wcn-online.com