The Greenwood football team knows it doesn\u2019t have much time to dwell on last Friday\u2019s loss to Lubbock-Cooper Liberty.<\/p>\n
The Rangers (2-1) continue their tough non-district schedule on Friday when they host Class 5A Division II opponent Wichita Falls Legacy (3-0) at J.M. King Memorial Stadium.<\/p>\n
Greenwood is coming off a 56-25 loss to the Patriots, who are ranked No. 6 in the latest Class 4A Division II poll by Dave Campbell\u2019s Texas Football.<\/p>\n
The Patriots jumped out to a 21-0 lead and had a 42-8 advantage at the half.<\/p>\n
The Rangers also didn\u2019t help themselves with two key turnovers in the red zone that led to Liberty touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Greenwood coach Bryan Hill said the youth of his team showed at times going against a senior-heavy team like the Patriots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really proud of our effort. I was not proud of our execution,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you turn on the film, our kids are running to the ball, the effort was definitely there, but you can\u2019t spot any team that number of points, especially a top-10 opponent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were at least three 14-point swings, two of which were inside the opponent 5-yard line, going into score. When you dig yourself a hole like that so early in the game, it\u2019s almost insurmountable. All the credit in the world has to go to Lubbock Liberty, especially their defense. We were able to move the ball, but they really tightened up when we got in the red zone. If we could take some of their scores off the board and replace them with Greenwood touchdowns, it\u2019s a much better game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hill added that he believes that his kids learned a lot from that experience and is confident the Rangers can grow from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re humbled for sure, but we\u2019re also hungry to prove that we can execute at a much higher level on Friday night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with our young team, there were several of our sophomores on varsity that this was their first time losing a football game in a Greenwood jersey. They won in seventh grade, won in eighth grade, won their freshman year, so this was a new experience for them, albeit negative. They know how to win, they expect to win. If anything, it will humble us, refocus us. I think there were a lot of lessons that we learned on Friday night that will pay big dividends as we make our way through the district schedule and into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legacy is coming off a 42-14 victory over Lubbock Monterey as the Leopards had 522 total yards. Junior quarterback Knox Hodges, who\u2019s the son of former Texas Tech wide receiver Slade Hodges and nephew of former Tech quarterback Cody Hodges, threw for 343 yards and five touchdowns in the win.<\/p>\n
Hill said the Leopards also have a lot of speed, especially in the receiving corps. He added that Hodges also seems to have command of the offense and has a lot of rhythm in his throws and doesn\u2019t put the ball in harm\u2019s way very much. Defensively, Hill said the Leopards also have a lot of speed on that side of the ball, and they don\u2019t make many mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re coming in as a young, confident, talented team, so we\u2019re going to have our hands full, especially on the defensive side of the ball,\u201d Hill said. \u201cI\u2019m excited at a chance at redemption.\u00a0I think we were exposed a little bit, but the good thing about it is there\u2019s another one coming Friday night. It\u2019s another opportunity to prove ourselves and I\u2019m confident we\u2019re going to put a better product on the field this week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Greenwood football team knows it doesn\u2019t have much time to dwell on last Friday\u2019s loss to Lubbock-Cooper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-436999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}