Round Rock vs Westwood: In-Depth Look at Both Teams
A battle between two Round Rock schools is going to commence at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Dragon Stadium. Round Rock has enjoyed a successful season despite COVID-19 hovering around the Central Texas high school landscape. The Dragons are 6-2 and…
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Continue ReadingA battle between two Round Rock schools is going to commence at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Dragon Stadium.
Round Rock has enjoyed a successful season despite COVID-19 hovering around the Central Texas high school landscape. The Dragons are 6-2 and are led by senior quarterback Seth Ford. He has 818 passing yards and five touchdowns with two interceptions this year. The passing stats may not be impressive, but that is only because Ford also likes to run the ball himself, rushing for 520 yards and eight touchdowns as well. Round Rock has proven to be much more of a rushing attack kind of team especially given the stats from senior running back Israel Morgan.
Morgan has 1.428 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns. He has rushed for over 100 yards in every game this season and has scored at least one touchdown in every game this season. Against McNeil, Morgan rushed for 252 yards and five touchdowns. Morgan has the potential to explode on any given night and Westwood will have to do its best to prevent Morgan from being hot but no team has been able to do so. Even defensively great teams like Vista Ridge and Vandegrift failed to keep Morgan down. Westwood has a great challenge to stop the powerhouse of the Round Rock offense.
Westwood is the exact opposite when it comes to offense as senior quarterback R.J. Martinez opts to throw the ball rather than run it. Martinez has 2,028 passing yards and 18 touchdowns with eight interceptions. The Warriors have an average running game and most of the offense comes from the air, so the biggest step the Dragons need to take to defeat Westwood is to stop that passing game. However, the Round Rock secondary will be tested by some of Martinez’s favorite targets including senior wide receiver Robbie Jeng and senior wide receiver Julian Deberry. Jeng has 46 receptions for 686 yards and eight touchdowns while Deberry has 40 receptions for 351 yards and two touchdowns. Jeng is a player who should not be slept on as his biggest reception this season came from a 96-yard bomb.
Defensively, Round Rock’s main attack comes from junior defensive lineman Isaac Urquidi, who has five sacks this season which includes nine hurries. Although, senior defensive lineman Luke Dodds has 14 hurries with four sacks. Both of these linemen will be the main players to cause disruption against Westwood and their eyes will be focused on taking down Martinez, who has some of the best numbers in Central Texas. In the secondary, there are two defensive backs that guys like Jeng and Deberry will have to compete against and those are senior Carson Otworth and senior Daveyon Finch, who both have three interceptions. Otworth also has 10 pass deflections so whenever Martinez goes to make a throw, he will have to keep an eye out for both of these backs when going deep.
For Westwood, the defense has been a struggle but there is still some talent shining through these struggles. Senior defensive lineman Jackson Metzger leads the team with three sacks with a total of 22 yards lost. With four players sharing one sack each as well, Metzger emerges as the most likely player to cause disruption for Ford, but for Morgan, he will have to watch out for senior linebacker Drew Goodall, who leads the team with 29 total tackles and three tackles for a loss. Goodall will have his eyes set on stopping Morgan from breaking it loose in this game.
Westwood faces an uphill battle against Round Rock tomorrow but no team should be underestimated and the Warriors do have a chance to pull off an upset, but stopping Morgan for the first time this season would be necessary for this to happen.