Leps Beat Navasota to Improve to 4-1

The La Grange football team is certainly giving its fans their money’s worth.

Two home games – two last minute victories by the Leps this season.

In the Leps’ first home game in a month since their overtime win over Cameron in the season opener, the Leps rallied to beat Navasota 3430 Friday. Senior quarterback Clayton Cooper capped a monster game with his twoyard go-ahead touchdown run with 54 seconds left in the game.

Cooper rushed for 200 yards and three touchdowns Friday and also threw for 113 yards and another score.

This was the first victory for the Leps over Navasota since 2006, and it has the Leps 4-1 at the midway point of the regular season for the first time since 2019. The Leps have already surpassed their win total from all of last year when they went 3-8.

“We said at the beginning of the season we knew we were a different team and this feels really awesome,” Clayton Cooper said.

Cooper’s game-winning touchdown had been set up by a 42-yard punt return by Dwodney Thompson.

“Navasota had a great cornerback that limited him (Thompson) offensively. It’s not always your night on offense for whatever reason but he found a way to get it done,” La Grange head coach Kyle Cooper said. “He’s a dangerous kid and we want the ball in his hands.”

Navasota tried to fight back after the Leps took the late lead, but La Grange iced the game when Jaylances Johnson intercepted Navasota’s 44th and final pass attempt of the night with ten seconds left in the contest.

“It just felt amazing making a big play like that,” Johnson said. “Navasota tried to tire us out with the run. Our DLine stood tall and made them throw it.”

Sophomore Chris Supak also snagged a interception for the Leps, his first varsity pick.

“I’m proud of myself. I love this team and we have all worked for this. This was a team effort,” Supak said. “This win was a statement going into district.”

La Grange is off this week and won’t play again until they host Madisonville Oct. 11 in the district opener.

Navasota falls to 2-3 with the loss.

La Grange had started slow offensively in their last couple of games but that wasn’t a problem Friday as the Leps rattled off 20 first quarter points – Cooper scoring runs of 67 and 15 yards sandwiched around a 24-yard touchdown by Da’von Giscome.

“He’s a great competitor and a tough kid,” coach Cooper said of his senior son/quarterback. “His nickname was ‘Crash’ ever since he could walk because he couldn’t walk across the living room floor without crashing into something. He’s not afraid of contact. We’ve got to take care of the ball a little better but I’m proud of him. He did a good job and made some big plays tonight.”

But Navasota fought back with a up-tempo pass heavy offense that was in many ways a mirror-image of what La Grange tries to do.

A big difference was that Navasota could get little going on the ground against the La Grange defense, which allowed the Rattlers just 40 rushing yards.

La Grange rushed for 248 yards.

But through the air, Navasota scored 14 unanswered points to start the second quarter to take a 21-20 lead.

La Grange’s Eli Gillum caught a 19-yard touchdown pass from Cooper just before halftime and then Taylor Cook’s extra point sent the Leps into the break with a 2720 lead.

“Navasota is a great program. Offensively they attack you all over. They can run it. They can throw it,” Coach Cooper said. “Our (defensive) guys see it every day in practice ourselves, lining up fast. They are used to that. They really did a stellar job in the second half, and locked it down and kept us in the game.”

Navasota’s Giovanni Perez nailed a 25-yard field goal to trim the Leps lead to just 27-24 in the third quarter.

Later in that quarter both teams had field goal tries hit the cross bar and bounce away.

Navasota re-took the lead 30-27 with 7:09 left in the game on sophomore quarterback Jace Jablonski’s third touchdown pass of the game – an eight-yarder to Cameron Ross (who ended up snagging nine passes for a game high 147 yards).

Both teams traded punts before La Grange got the ball at the Navasota 13-yard line thanks to that long punt return by Thompson.

“Dwodney put us in amazing position. We couldn’t not score from there,” Clayton Cooper said.

Three plays later Cooper was churning his way to the go-ahead touchdown behind the block of senior lineman Gavin Hollek.

“Felt good to know he went right behind me to win the game,” Hollek said. “We’ve really been putting in the work in the weight room. We go to the weight room six days a week, and that really helps.”

Navasota still had 54 seconds to try to mount a comeback, but Johnson’s interception ended that, and started the celebration for La Grange.

La Grange 34, Navasota 30

Score by quarters

La Grange 20 7 0 7 – 34 Navasota 7 14 3 6 – 30

FIRST QUARTER

NAVASOTA – 5:45. Artavian Rurtherford 3 run (Giovanni Perez kick) LA GRANGE – 5:11, Clayton Cooper 67 run (Taylor Cook kick) LA GRANGE – 3:52, Da’von Giscome 24 run (Cook kick) LA GRANGE – :06, Cooper 15 run (run failed) SECOND QUARTER

NAVASOTA – 7:24, Daquan Pratt 25 pass from Jace Jablonski (Perez kick) NAVASOTA – 4:30, Cameron Ross 9 pass from Jablonski (Perez kick) LA GRANGE – :14, Eli Gillum 19 pass from Cooper (Cook kick) THIRD QUARTER

NAVASOTA – 11:47, 25-yard field goal by Perez FOURTH QUARTER

NAVASOTA – 7:09, Ross 8 pass from Jablonski (run failed) LA GRANGE – :54, Cooper 2 run (Cook kick)

LG Nav

Rushes-yds 46-248 25-40 Passing yards 113 355 Total yards 361 395 Comp-Att-Int 15-23-0 29-44-2 Fumbles-lost 3-1 2-0 Penalties-Yds 7-60 5-37

INDIVIDUAL STATS Rushing: La Grange – Clayton Cooper 27-200, Da’von Giscome 11-43, Dillan Johnson 5-8, Le’Kayvion Broussard 1-7, Team 2-(-10); Navasota: Artavian Rutherford 15-42, Jace Jablonski 9-(-2), Valenton Castaneda 1-0.

Passing: La Grange – Clayton Cooper 15 of 23 for 113 yards with 1 TD and 0 INTs; Navasota – Jablonski 29 of 44 for 355 yards with 3 TDs and 1 INT.

Receiving: La Grange – Dillan Johnson 4-39, Da’von Giscome 4-22, Eli Gillum 3-24, Mason Kleiber 3-19, Dwodney Thompson 1-9; Navasota – Cameron Ross 9-147.

District 11-4A

La Grange 4-1 Sealy 4-1 Bellville 2-3 Caldwell 2-2 Madisonville 2-4 Giddings 1-4

This week’s games:

La Grange 34, Navasota 30 Columbus 49, Bellville 35 Sealy 55, Needville 17 Center 17, Madisonville 14 El Campo 56, Giddings 7 Caldwell was off

This week’s game:

Caldwell at Lexington All other district teams are off