Leopards Fall Friday at Bellville

Injuries to a pair of senior captains made Friday’s 55-27 loss to Bellville extra painful for the La Grange football team.

Just two plays apart in the first quarter, and with Bellville up 14-7 but the Leps driving deep in Brahmas territory, La Grange quarterback Eli Gillum and offensive lineman Sterling Walla both left the game with injuries and never returned.

Gillum’s knee injury will end his Leps career after two years leading the highpowered La Grange offense, which up until Friday hadn’t scored less than 31 points in a game this season.

“Two special guys, not just what they do on the field but what they do in the locker room,” La Grange head coach Kyle Cooper said. “It’s an unfortunate part of the game and it hurts you when two guys like that go down, but you have to rally up and play. I thought we kept swinging. I thought we did some good stuff offensively early and found some things we could do late.

“Defensively, we have to get them off the field, which we didn’t do.”

Bellville rushed for 566 yards in the game, led by a five-touchdown, 250-yard performance by senior Travis Turner. Roddy Luera added 146 yards on the ground for the Brahmas, who improved to 4-3 overall and 3-0 in district and took over sole possession of first place of 12-4A with the win.

Up until the point he was injured Gillum (who was a 1,000+ yard rusher and passer last year for the Leps and was on pace to do so again this year) was having a stellar game, completing all four passes he attempted and rushing for a 48 yard touchdown. It was on his second run of the game, a 22-yard gain, that he was injured.

Just three plays after Gillum was injured, back-up quarterback Chris Supak was injured (though he later returned). That touched off all manner of offensive adjustments for the Leps, who ended up having five different players play quarterback Friday.

La Grange’s Ethan Prasek led the Leps in catches Friday with five, and had receptions thrown by three different quarterbacks.

“Our plan was to keep things simple, short and fast (offensively). We put up a good fight,” Prasek said.

The most significant time at QB was handled by running back Dillan Johnson.

Even amidst all the changes, the Leps managed 335 yards of offense against Bellville Friday. Klayton Michalka moved from receiver to running back and scampered for a 68-yard touchdown run that cut the Bellville lead to 21-17 in the second quarter.

A pair of Gio Luna field goals (of 23 and 45 yards) also helped keep the Leps in the game early.

But the Bellville Slot-T running attack was too much to handle. The Brahmas took a 35-20 lead into halftime and outscored the Leps 14-0 in the third quarter.

“The biggest thing about Bellville is the amount of people they have on the line,” said La Grange defensive lineman Whitaker Samples. “You just have to read the right people. Everyone has a job to do and the person has to do that job, and if they do we shut them down, and we did a few times.”

There was a late bright spot for the Leps as senior tight end Conner Brooks caught his first varsity touchdown – a 23-yarder from Chris Supak.

This was the first season Brooks, a standout basketball player for the Leps, has played football since middle school.

“Chris Supak told me I was going to get the ball and I was like ‘Uh oh,’but it worked out just like coach drew it up and it fell right in my hands,” Brooks said. “I didn’t come back for the love of football, I came back for my brothers, being back here with the guys and enjoying it was want I wanted to do.”

With Friday’s loss, La Grange (4-3 overall and 2-1 in district) still has work to do to clinch a playoff spot.

The Leps host the Brazosport Exporters this Friday at 7 p.m. Brazosport is 6-2 overall and 1-2 in district and coming off a 61-0 win over Katy Harmony.

“This was not the outcome we wanted but there’s a lot of football left in this season,” Cooper said. “We’ll learn from this one and put it behind us and start figuring out how to be the best version of ourselves moving forward.”