KERRY BARBOZA Sports Editor
Comfort played so well in last week’s playoff opener against Taft that they even raised the eyebrows of their head coach Jay Rieken.
The Bobcats rolled to 67 points on its way to a 67-28 victory. Comfort’s blowout win moves them to the second round where they’ll face Rogers Friday at Shelton Stadium in Buda, 7 p.m. The Cats are the visiting team.
“It was a surprise,” Rieken said about his team’s performance last Friday. “Watching (Taft), I thought we could run on them, but not score 67. We ran the ball right at them and they didn’t like it.”
Comfort tallied an impressive 736 yards of offense, with 706 coming on the ground. Topper Sterling led the way with 339 yards on 33 totes and 4 touchdowns.
The talented sophomore has surpassed 300 yards in three different games this year and is closing in on 2,000 yards. Sterling recorded 382 rushing yards against Nixon-Smiley for a single game school record and then hit 301 vs. Brackett.
So far this year, Sterling has accumulated 1,873 yards on 211 attempts.
Rieken said that Sterling ran the ball well, but noted that several other players had big nights and turned in explosive plays.
Mason West logged touchdown runs of 59 and 75 yards and finished with 190 rushing yards on 13 carries, while Landon Aguirre rushed 6 times for 93 yards and a TD.
Gio Lopez carried the rock three times for 42 yards and a score, while Micah Nye rushed 4 times for 26 yards and a touchdown.
Nye only completed one pass last Friday but it went for a 30-yard touchdown to West.
“We didn’t big play them until we needed to, the rest of the time we methodically drove it down,” Rieken said. “We ran three running plays most of the night, it was just a matter of which side do we want to run it to. We played a complete game and played like we're capable of doing.
“Their quarterback and receiver were real good, but they were playing from behind,” Rieken added. “We threw them out of their game. The defense did a fantastic job on them. We had a fantastic week of practice and I thought we would play well the way practices went.”
Comfort is 6-5 overall, while Rogers enters the contest at 8-3.
The Eagles went 2-3 in non-district but haven’t lost since then. Rogers went 5-0 in district to win the league title and then beat Van Vleck last week, 42-15 for its sixth straight win.
Rieken said it’s going to be a tough game.
“They’re good, we have to play error-free football,” he said. “They do everything well and they don’t give up a whole lot of points. They’ve got size and we have to play disciplined football against them. They live and die by the run game.
“Defensively, they’re very sound and very big and go to the ball,” Rieken continued. “They play old school football.”
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