Writing with heavy heart
I never enjoy writing these after a playoff loss whether it is the second round or state. The reality of the playoffs is jarring and especially hit home in the days when the field house walls would be covered in season material and you’d have booster sales going on with ticket sales for the next game. Then, after a loss, you’d arrive next week to see everything stripped bare, no ticket sales, and equipment bins lining the halls. I think it was Coach Miller who told me something along the lines of it feeling like a gut punch, and that’s the best description for it. The Mustangs ran out 42-28 winners over Katy.
It was North Shore’s third playoff win over Katy in a row and four wins out of the last five playoff games between the two since 2016. Katy claimed its only victory over North Shore in 2017 during this span. The Mustangs have taken over the rivalry and the Greater Houston area, and it’s not close at the moment. Their best competition is coming from their own district in 23-6A. 23-6A has all four region 3 finalists in Division 1 and Division 2 (North Shore, Atascocita, Summer Creek, Kingwood).
A good start
Katy won the opening toss and deferred to the Mustangs per usual Tiger custom. The Tigers stopped North Shore’s first series and forced a punt, but couldn’t do anything with its first possession on offense. Katy punted back, and North Shore broke a huge return into Tiger territory. On film, Jacob Hilton was the first man down for Katy and appeared to take a clear one-handed shove in the back that eliminated any chance he had of making first contact. No flag.
North Shore capitalized on the short field to score their first points of the game and take the 7-0 lead. Katy’s second series on offense was empty, and the Tigers punted out of bounds this time. North Shore gashed Katy with a big run from the QB Kaleb Bailey up the middle after the Tiger MLBs bit on the sweep action leaving the middle lane exposed. Later this drive, North Shore scored on a shift to a 4×3 look in the shotgun. Katy lined up incorrectly to the 3 wide side (just 2 defenders) with the shift, and North Shore scored on this play with a +1 man advantage. North Shore 14-0. The dreaded chase mode was quickly activated for Katy.
The one thing Katy had to avoid game state wise was a negative start and immediately having to chase. It would get worse. Katy punted back to North Shore, and they got another big punt return to set up on the Tigers’ 13 yard line. North Shore punched in the short field to increase the advantage to 21-0. The game entered 2021 Westlake realm at this point.
Some shining moments
Remarkably, Katy was picked off on its next series by the All-American Devin Sanchez to set up the Mustangs once again in Katy territory. Officially, this was the nightmare start scenario for Katy.
North Shore attempted a deep out route pass that Isaiah McMillian was able to jump for Katy, intercept, and return into the red area. Katy’s first sign of life in the game under threat of blow out. Joshua Smith scored to get Katy on the board at 21-7.
Katy’s defense forced a fumble on North Shore’s next possession to take back over on the doorstep of the red area. The Tigers leaked out Jon Stephens on a clever play to score and nice QB play from Gunner. 21-14. Incredibly given the nightmare start, Katy was back in the football game.
North Shore popped a big play on a bubble to Deion Deblanc where the Katy defender with a shot at the point of attack took a bad angle and whiffed. Katy stopped North Shore on a 4th and 8 and took over near the Mustangs midfield. Katy’s possession stalled out inside North Shore’s half of the field.
Katy held North Shore to a 4th down, but lined up incorrectly to a shift allowing the North Shore punter (receiver Deion Deblanc) to easily convert around the side where NS had plus numbers. North Shore hit a deep post right after to recover momentum and take a 28-14 lead. North Shore caught the Katy safety cheating up in a blown coverage over the top. This was the first hammer blow sequence in the game to any Katy comeback hopes. Katy stalls out inside the NS half, and then gives up a fake punt and blown coverage TD.
Coming back from halftime
Katy had the ball first out of half, and scored on a great drive to narrow the Mustang lead to 28-21. The Tigers came out in its pistol series and broke a big gain up the middle from Hill. Quay Jordan punched in the score.
The Tigers stopped North Shore and then blocked the punt to set up just outside the red zone. Unfortunately, Katy fumbled the ball back to North Shore on minimal contact as the Tigers ran through a nice hole. This play was the second big hammer blow to any hope Katy had of coming back.
North Shore scored on a big play Vegas screen to Farrakhan, but it was called back for penalty. Katy forced a North Shore punt after the penalty and this time correctly lined up to the punt formation and stopped the fake attempt short.
The Katy offense again had the ball in North Shore territory down by 7. Katy had a poor series and was forced into a 4th and 17 as the 4th quarter started and did not convert. This was the third and final hammer blow to any chance Katy had.
The Mustangs start pulling away
North Shore took over 94 yards away, and scored a touchdown after hitting two big wheel route plays to #2 speedster Chris Thomas along the way. The Mustangs created a cushion they wouldn’t relinquish at 35-21.
At 35-21, Katy attempted the deep ball to McCall but the officials determined he went down a bit too easily when competing with Pringle. They actually both had a hand on each other as the ball arrived. This won’t be popular, but I believe it was a correct no call seeing it on film. Katy went for it on fourth down near midfield, but was stopped short. North Shore capitalized on the short field to make it 42-21.
The final scoring drive for Katy was all Izzy. He made two incredible plays to score Katy’s last points of the year to set the final score at 42-28. This was probably the most undisciplined North Shore team I’ve seen maybe ever, but certainly in over a decade.
So what do we take from this?
Although the game flow was different, the overall result was very similar to Katy’s game against Atascocita in non-district (41-24 loss versus 42-28 here) and not just in the final scores/margins. Unlike this game, Katy started extremely well against Atascocita but had the same combination of turnovers, special teams snafus, and blown coverages against an athletically superior opponent. And despite all of those things, Katy was in both games when the fourth quarter started. In my opinion, everything about Katy’s program going into 2025 should dissect these two games in detail to see if there is anything that can be done to put Katy in a better position to compete with the top level. Non-district against quality opponents tells you quite a bit.
Katy has been an inexperienced football team overall these past couple of seasons and giving up a huge athletic advantage to the top level teams we are seeing at the 6A level currently. Sound fundamentals are more important than they have ever been for a program like Katy to try and compete in this era of big school football. Say what you want about the open transfers, etc, that the current dominant programs are benefitting from, but that’s all completely outside of Katy’s direct control.
What we can (and can’t) control
Also, Katy can’t control the growth trends in the district and the fact that getting consistently strong classes athletically is harder than it has ever been in a district with 10 high schools or whatever insanity it is now.
Katy can control attention to detail. They can control covering kicks and punts effectively. They can control lining up correctly and coordinating coverages. The Tigers can control taking better pursuit angles and tackling. Katy can control not fumbling the football. They can control not having multiple empty possessions when taking over inside opposition territory. Katy can control having a more developed offense with a more diverse array of tools should the ground game fail or be inconsistent. Katy can control how it develops talent with a view to improving how it defends in space.
The key for Katy moving forward will be to take care of all the things within its direct control and block everything else out. If there has been any complacency preventing the same commitment to detail past Katy teams had, the program needs to root that out immediately and recommit everything about what it does towards details and fundamentals. Katy’s edge must be in the little things.
