Navasota Beats La Grange 61-42 in Season-Opening Slugfest

Mother Nature brought the thunder, but it was La Grange and Navasota that brought the lightning.

In a season opener that was delayed an hour by bad weather Friday, La Grange and Navasota played a football game that moved at times at video game speed. The teams combined for 103 points (48 combined points in the second quarter alone) before Navasota eventually prevailed 61-42.

“It hurts, we worked hard for this,” said La Grange senior running back Dillan Johnson who scored four touchdowns. “We played a good game in the first half. It’s just little details we have to clean up to beat good teams like Navasota.”

La Grange held one point leads at halftime and midway through the third quarter but the Rattlers scored 20 unanswered points the rest of the way to grab the win.

'They were explosive,” La Grange head coach Kyle Cooper said. “That’s such a factor in today’s football game. You have to win the explosive plays and we didn’t stop their’s tonight. We saw some good stuff. There were some key places where I thought we gave up some opportunities.”

The final stats in this one were quite astounding.

Navasota amassed 776 of yardage from scrimmage, including 508 through the air. Rattlers senior quarterback Jace Jablonski threw six touchdown passes including three to junior Caysien Douglas and two to junior Jayden Spriggs.

Douglas caught 10 passes for 155 yards and Spriggs (who stood six-foot-six and is getting all kinds of D-I scholarship offers) caught 15 passes for 203 yards.

To their credit, the Leps See not only hung with the Rattlers, but gave them a scare for nearly three quarters.

Leps senior running back Dillan Johnson ran for a teamhigh 152 yards and scored those four touchdowns.

La Grange senior quarterback Eli Gillum threw for 218 yards and also ran for a touchdown.

Klayton Michalka made the most of his first regular season game as a wide receiver (he was a running back for the Leps last year) as he caught three passes for a whopping 147 yards and a touchdown.

But while the La Grange offense looked so explosive early in the game they sputtered a bit late.

Navasota, meanwhile, never took their foot off the gas.

Things started rough for the Leps in this one as Navasota’s Douglas snagged an interception on La Grange’s first play from scrimmage sparking the Rattlers to a 20-7 early lead.

But La Grange’s Rogan Mihatsch intercepted one of Jablonski’s few miscues in the endzone in the first quarter to help spark a La Grange comeback.

“It just comes down to coaching,” Mihatsch said of that interception. “I saw my key and I played it, simple as that.”

Other defensive standouts for the Leps Friday included Trey Broussard, who led in tackles with 17, Howard Holmes (who had 16 tackles) Van Hill (who had 14 tackles), and Chris Supak (who had 10).

The Leps’ special teams was truly special in some aspects Friday. Punter Colt Jobb boomed several kicks. New Leps place kicker, sophomore Gio Luna, was perfect on all of his extra points. La Grange also got some big kick returns from Holmes and Michalka.

But it still wasn’t enough to beat Navasota (1-0), which had beaten La Grange by a similar margin last year (6727).

Now La Grange turns its attention to an equally tough challenge this week, a trip to state 3A No. 1-ranked Columbus. The Cardinals opened their season with a 34-19 win over Bay City last week. Columbus returns 10 offensive and seven defensive starters from last year’s team that went 11-3.

“We’re going to be a great football team,” Cooper said. “This film will make us better. You experience your most growth from Week 1 to Week 2. We’ll get up tomorrow morning and go to work.”