AUSTIN, Texas — It's week four of high school football, and that means another pair of school's chance to be KVUE's Game of the Week!
This week, the honor goes to Westwood High School and Vista Ridge High School. Last season, Westwood beat Vista Ridge 27-7 and Vista Ridge took the edge in 2016, 56-49.
Vista Ridge enters the matchup 3-0 and Westwood is 2-1, riding momentum from a huge 28-27 win over Hendrickson, including one of our favorite post game moments of the season. Westwood coach Anthony Wood gave one heck of a reaction to KVUE after that win against Hendrickson.
KVUE's Jake Garcia went to Westwood High School on Tuesday. Here is how the school is prepping for this matchup.
"The best team on our schedule that we can possibly play right now is Vista Ridge," Wood said on Tuesday. " If we don't come with our A-game, then we're going to be Saturday morning, 'How did this happen?' I don't want to ask that question. There's a reason where we're at right now and so let's continue to do the things that we did in order to get where we want to be. If we do those things, we'll be special on Friday night."
Westwood head coach Anthony Wood is exactly where he's supposed to be.
He had the postgame reaction of the year and told KVUE there isn't anything in the world he'd rather be doing than coaching high school football.
That energy and enthusiasm is reflected in this year's team, as it's put a tough 2018 behind it and clawed out two heart-pounding wins.
The Warriors are led offensively by junior quarterback RJ Martinez, a Division I prospect. Senior wideout Oliver Yu hauled in three touchdown passes a week ago.
Defensively, Westwood has been up and down, but is riding a wave of confidence after shutting out Hendrickson in the second half last week.
"After seeing what they can do, they started to believe in themselves," Wood said. "We had struggled against Eastview and in the first half against Austin High and Hendrickson. The who
le time we kept telling our players, you're there, now go believe that you can make the play. Our guys were very hesitant early on and you saw in the second half that they just let it all go."
KVUE's Emily Giangreco visited Vista Ridge on Thursday to see how they were preparing for the game.
The Rangers are heading into this game 3-0 but they know that this matchup against Westwood is going to be different than those first three wins
"The last several weeks we've had to stop big time rushing attacks," said Rodney Vincent, "this week we've got to work on controlling their passing game and the things that they do really well at Westwood offensively."
Vista Ridge has won their last three games by at least 20 points, but Coach Vincent doesn't focus on those past games.
"There's a lot of things that we're working on to improve each and every week but if we can have that 1-0 mentality, just try to get better every week, this group's got a chance to be really good down the stretch."
Both Westwood and Vista Ridge started their season 1-0 in conference play.
PREGAME:
HALFTIME:
WE'VE GOT A CLOSE GAME!
FINAL:
Miss the game of the week or our Friday Football Fever show? Catch all the highlights here:
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: