Spring In Their Step

(Elysian Fields, TX) Head coaches typically dismiss the notion that one game's bigger than the rest. 

Elysian Fields head coach Eric King isn't your typical coach and he doesn't hide the fact that beating Hughes Springs is a program mile marker. 

"Since January, we've been driving for this goal. We've been lifting weights, running laps, gasers, things like that for this moment right here."

His players are following suit.

"This is all we need to have on our minds right now," Tanner Norman, Elysian Fields linebacker, said. "We've worked hard for this since day one and this week, winning this game is the goal."

In King's four year reign as the general of the Yellowjackets, he's never won a district title and never beaten Hughes Springs. In 2012, a breakthrough win over the Mustangs puts his squad in the driver's seat of a district championship, and that's a crown King has been searching for. 

"Good to great is our motto. We've always been a good team in the past. We wanna be a great team now and we wanna get to that great point. That point would be a district title for us."

Hughes Springs won't call the win a milestone. They don't have to.They're the two-time defending district champs, but they won't deny that beating Elysian in 2012 is a battle they have to win, in order to win the war.

"This game is no bigger than the other seven," Chris Edwards, Hughes Springs head coach, said. "However, with a win, we have a real good chance of a district championship, third consecutive one. It almost guarantees us a playoff birth and we keep our winning streak alive. So, it has bigger implications, but it's not bigger than any other game."

The Mustang seniors can feel the buzz of the biggest game of the year to date.