Faith Academy football hosts undefeated Medina

CAPTION: Faith junior Wade Dillard rushes the Giddings Lonestar Souheast quarterback. Photo by Stennis Shotts

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls football team welcomes Medina (5-0) to a 7 p.m. contest Friday, Oct. 3, at Britton Field.

“Medina is better than last year,” head coach Jay Silvers said. “Last year, I think they had a down year, but it looks like they have (bounced back). They look like they like to pass the ball. They’ve got a pretty decent quarterback. They’re one of those that they’ll run the ball, too, and they do a good job with their blocking game. We know what to do on defense. We’ve just got to make sure we do our jobs.”

The Flames’ defense is led by Price Rosemond.

“He watches a lot of game film during the week,” Silvers said. “The schemes that (defensive coordinator Garrett) Cole comes up with, he understands them, and he knows where everybody’s supposed to be, where we’re attacking from, gets everybody lined up where they’re supposed to be. So he’s the reliable source when Cole’s calling out the defensive formation. Everybody’s moved into the right spot if somebody’s not exactly in the gap they’re supposed to be or just not in the right coverage. He has a great understanding of who teams are, and so he does a really good job with all that.”

Offensively, the coach expects Medina to pose a great challenge.

“Defensively, they’ve got speed, so our guys are just going to get on their blocks and hold them just a little bit longer,” he said. “And so they’ve got to contend with our speed. I don’t think they’ve seen anybody, from what I’ve seen, as fast as we are.” 

The Flames (4-1) will enter this game with added confidence after another stellar performance where they beat Giddings Lonestar Southeast 45-0 last week in a contest that needed two quarters to finish.

The best part about the offensive game plan against Lonestar, according to Silvers, is he was able to call other plays to see them against another defensive unit.

“I really was intentional about just trying some different plays,” he said. “I know what plays I have that work really well with my guys, but I wanted to work some other plays because I only ran eight last week. Again, Andrew (Houy), Landon (Silvers) and Wade (Dillard) did a great job. Adam (Merlick) and sophomore Graham (McGraw) out there at wide receiver did a great job catching the ball and getting it downfield. The things that we were able to work on, I was able to figure out there’s a better blocking scheme or this works.”

That allows him to be even more creative with the play calling as the Flames will add more options to their formations that will confuse defenses as to what they’ll run next.

“So, yeah, offensively, I felt really good with what we were running,” the coach said. “And like I said, I was a little more intentional about what plays we were running because I wanted to try some new stuff to put in our repertoire to make sure we know how to do it in a game-time situation.”

The Flames are generating hundreds of yards of total offense while only being on the field for about a dozen plays. That illustrates, depth – both in the number of players available and that each Flame understands his role.

“And so, yeah, the offense, I feel like they’re doing really well right now,” Silvers said. “There’s a few things that we’ve got to shore up a little more, but when they’re clicking, they’re going to be hard to stop. And so that’s what we’re hoping for this week.”

CAPTION: Faith Academy senior Adam Merlick makes sure to be productive when he’s in the game. Photo by Stennis Shotts