Yoemen Sports Network

The Cameron Yoemen will finally get to play under the lights at Yoe Field this Friday night when Giddings travels to town. Home openers in Cameron are always special, but this game appears to have a little extra zing to it, as Cameron, which comes in ranked eighth in the latest Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Rankings, and Giddings, ranked sixth in the state in 4A division II, will be meeting up in what could be the top matchup in Central Texas for week four.

“It’s our home opener and of course we want to do well and it should be a really good game,” said Yoe coach Tommy Brashear. “We have been playing pretty well and they have obviously been playing really well as they are 3-0 already. They have beaten some pretty well-known programs. When you seem them on film you can tell that they are well-coached and are a physical football team.

Brashear remembers back to his playing days in the 90s when the two were in the same district.

Giddings (3-0) Vs. Cameron Yoe (2-0)

At the 9:14 mark of the first quarter fo Friday’s road tilt at Gatesville, the Yoemen, which at the time trailed 7-0,  were headed back to the locker room for what was the second rain delay of the contest.

To that point, the Hornets were controlling the time of possession and the weather conditions seemed to be playing in their favor.  However, as many Yoe fans could see from their cell phone radars while standing near the Gatesville concession stand during the delay, more favorable conditions were on the horizon.

45 minutes later both teams returned to the field with clearer skies and it was the Yoe offense that heated up, scoring 34 second half points en route to a 41-21 win.

Making strides. That has been the goal for the Lady Yoe volleyball team for the last three years. In order for the program to get to where they want to be, which is in the playoff hunt, they know they will have to compete with some of the top dogs in 19-3A.

Heading into district play on Tuesday, there may have not been a tougher opponent than Rockdale, which entered the contest with an overall record of 22-9 and was the only team in the district to be included in the latest rankings, coming in at number 25.

It was not a win for Cameron, but it was as close as it could have been in what was a 18-16 loss in a winner-take-all fifth set.

“I thought the kids came out with the right mindset,” Cameron coach Kamol Nohe said. “We want to play the game and we want to compete but we just fell a bit short. We know we need to do a little more tweaking and move things around a bit to get there, but it’s exciting to seem them compete.”

It’s no secret to anyone that Gatesville has traditionally given the Yoemen problems on the gridiron. Even when it appeared that Cameron was about to win back-to-back games over the Hornets in 2017, it all ended in a split second as a fumble went into and through the end zone, allowing the Hornets to escape from Yoe Field with a 31-29 win.

“Last year’s game was a heartbreaker,” said Yoe head coach Tommy Brashear. “We had a lot of mistakes including a touchdown called back with two men in motion and then we fumble into the endzone. There were several games last year that were heartbreakers and Gatesville was one of them. I personally would like to get that bad taste out of my mouth and get the win.”

Gatesville now holds a 12 to 9 overall advantage in the all-time series, making them one of a very few programs to have a winning record versus the Yoemen.

Cameron Yoe (1-0) Vs. Gatesville (1-1)

Perhaps the most tricky game on Cameron’s schedule is this road trip to Gatesville. Regardless of what kind of team the Hornets may have, they have traditionally given Cameron problems. With that said, I do believe this would be a year for the Yoemen to go on the road and pick up another win. Gatesville is far from the worst and they are a larger school, but they are lacking a bit in the speed category and I do believe that could play right into the hands of the Yoemen on Friday night. The main concern for me would be the fact that Gatesville does like to line up in quite a few different formations, so the Yoe defense will need to be disciplined. At the end of the day, Cameron’s defensive front is going to need to have a good game. If they can get the Hornets into second and third a long, this is going to be a good night.

Josh Pratt’s 3A DI Top 25 Rankings

Cameron Yoe (1-0) Vs. Bye

I was pleased with the way the Yoemen opened the 2018 season on the road. Mexia is certainly a quality team and Cameron managed to maintain a two to three touchdown lead most of the night. There were more positives on the offensive end, where Cameron managed to stay balanced on the night with the run and the pass. If this team can grown from there on that side of the ball, there should be some big time numbers put up throughout the 2018 season. The defense had good and bad moments Tackling is still somewhat of an issue and there were multiple cases of broken coverages. But, as Coach Brashear noted after the game, those are things that are correctable and there is still are plenty of opportunities to show improvement before we get into district play. Cameron will be playing in Gatesville in two weeks and that game is always a challenge.

Rockdale (0-1) Vs. Caldwell (0-1)

Lady Yoe cap off non-district with a win

Cameron wrapped up their non-district schedule on Tuesday evening from Yoe Gym with Marlin. The ladies will be heading into 19-3A action full of confidence after posting a dominating sweep: 25-2, 25-9, 25-22.

Cameron finishes non-district play with an overall record of 14-13 and will open district play on Friday in McGregor.

Marlin began the match with three consecutive errors before Carley Tucker slammed home a kill in the middle of the court to put Cameron up 4-0. Another quick passing error led to a timeout for the Lady Dogs, but that did not help the cause as Cameron’s lead grew to 10-0 before Marlin would finally get on the scoreboard.

Cameron ended up cruising to the first set win, 25-2.

A key ingredient to the success of past Yoemen football teams has been improvement week to week.  It’s been something that Yoe coach Tommy Brashear has spoken of multiple times in the early going, and it appears that his team is following through.  On Friday, the Yoemen opened their 2018 campaign with an impressive win on the road, taking down Mexia in a high-flying offensive battle, 49-34.

“I felt like we were a week better this week and that is our goal,” said Brashear.  “We got out of it pretty injury free. You want to improve but you also want to stay healthy and I thought we did that.  I’m very pleased with our first game out. The kids’ effort was great. We still made some mistakes on both sides of the ball, but we did a lot of good things, too.  There is a lot to build on.”