Beginning in August, Cistercian football players woke up for 7:00-11:00 practices Monday through Saturday in the heat. Over these first two weeks, the 28 warriors worked on all three phases—special teams, offense, and defense—under the great tutelage of Coaches Bruce, Drago, Walls, Barrett, and Mercy (who is new to Cistercian this year). The August “two-adays” helped the team get ready for the ten game season. After about two weeks of practice, the Hawks played in two scrimmages—one against Bishop Dunne and the other a three-way scrimmage against both Coram Deo and Covenant. In both of these scrimmages, the Hawks performed quite well, with the offense scoring multiple touchdowns in both games. Similarly, the defense was lights-out, performing excellently on both occasions and not allowing a single score against Bishop Dunne.
Coming off positive scrimmages, hopes were high heading into the first regular season game against Frisco Legacy. On August 30th, the Cistercian Hawks football team began the 2024 season against Legacy Christian Academy. The hopes heading into the season, however, were quickly dashed as the Hawks’ first game ended in a 38-0 loss. Despite this, one incredibly bright spot in the defeat was holding the Eagles scoreless in the second quarter and forcing a much-needed fumble in the second half. Though we had some success on defense, the offense unfortunately did fare as well, with multiple miss cues at and before the snap, resulting in the offense often starting drives behind the sticks. Because of these miss cues, the Hawks often failed to get drives going, and had no answers to the tough Eagles defense. The Hawks’ second game of the season was against the despicable St. Mark’s Lions. Here, the team made a better showing, with junior Dean Nevitt opening up the scoring with a field goal. However, the Hawks would fail to find the endzone, even though they were able to get into the red zone on multiple drives. A costly endzone interception, as well as a consistent inability to convert red zone fourth downs, kept the Hawks to a field goal. The good news? A potent ground game, with quarterback Walton rushing for over 100 yards. In this game, the defense came out flat, giving up big plays to the St. Marks play-action attack along with surrendering five touchdowns.
On September 14th, the Hawks faced their first road test of the season against the Grapevine Faith Lions. The game came down to the wire. Dean Nevitt blocked a Lions field goal that would have won the game, allowing his classmate Major Beasley to scoop and score a 70 yard walk-off touchdown, sending the Hawks into mayhem, with Coaches Bruce and Drago running down the sideline. It was a night to remember. Offensively, the Hawks had an amazing game, scoring six touchdowns and a field goal. The Hawks had over 350 yards of total offense, far and away their most productive game yet. The Hawks’ running game also was potent, with running backs Coleman Griffith and Will McHugh scoring two touchdowns apiece, and junior Patrick Sporl adding another. While the offense looked good, it had a few hiccups, with McHugh fumbling twice and Stu Walton throwing an interception late in the fourth quarter. Thankfully, Dean Nevitt came up with a crucial interception and special teams was able to recover a kickoff to begin an epic Hawks comeback.
Cistercian Football faces adversity, but fights on!
The Hawks were not able to care that momentum into their first conference game against the Oakridge Owls, unfortunately, but we’re confident they’ll continue making us proud. Before the 20th of September, Cistercian had beat Oakridge by 30 or more points the past three times the Hawks had played the Owls at home. However, this time the Hawks’ loss was crushing, with the game ending in a 41-3 loose for Cistercian. This was due to some struggles in tackling that allowed Oakridge to run for 343 yards and 5 touchdowns. On top of that, the Hawks’ over-reliance on the run ended up hurting them on offense, only rushing for 6 yards on 30 attempts and only throwing 17 passes even though their receivers were able to find consistent separation against a mediocre Oakridge pass defense. But our team and coaches are stalwart in their commitment and will keep fighting for the win. Hopefully the Hawks are able to rally and turn the season around in the coming weeks!