By Cody Pastorella
The Port Arthur News
September 02, 2008 09:05 pm
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Hurricane Gustav didn’t blow anything over in Southeast Texas, but it did manage to turn the Friday Night Lights into the Saturday Night Lights, with a couple of exceptions.
Still on for Friday night are Newton at East Chambers and Vidor at Houston St. Thomas. Two other games — Kirbyville at Jasper and Little Cypress-Mauriceville at West Orange-Stark — have been canceled.
The latter didn’t sit well with West Orange-Stark coach Dan Hooks, who is irate about losing a game off the schedule and the revenue it would have brought in. Hooks’ thoughts are documented elsewhere on this page.
The solution for most everybody else was just to back their games up one night. Unaffected were Nederland, which is off this week, and Port Arthur Memorial, which was already scheduled to play Ozen Saturday at 7 p.m. at Babe Zaharias Stadium in Beaumont.
Memorial is set to return to practice on Thursday, the same day school resumes. It will have one more day or preparation before heading to Beaumont on Saturday to square off with the Ozen. Both teams are 0-1, with the Titans having been edged by Central 10-7 and Ozen being blown out by West Brook, 50-7.
West Brook and Central, meanwhile, will meet Saturday at West Brook's Durley Stadium at 7 p.m. to conclude the Beaumont Bowl.
In other changes, Port Neches-Groves, which plans to practice today, will travel to Crosby on Saturday for a 7 p.m. game. The Indians are 1-0 after beating Barbers Hill 19-14 on Friday. Bridge City, which won for the first time under Cris Stump, will host Kountze at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
As for Nederland, which is licking its wounds from a 33-13 thumping at the hands of West Orange-Stark in its season opener, head coach Larry Neumann said the Bulldogs will return to the practice field Thursday afternoon.
The Port Arthur News Friday Night Experience telecast of the Nederland-West Orange-Stark game is still up in the air. It was originally scheduled to show Tuesday at 7 p.m., but has been moved back due to Gustav’s forced evacuation. It will be shown either Thursday or Friday at 7 p.m. on Cable 18.
Next action for Nederland is Sept. 12 at Waller.
In other area prep action, Kelly will travel to Hitchcock for a 6 p.m. matchup Saturday. The Bulldogs are 0-1 after an opening loss to Vidor.
Hamshire-Fannett, which meets Liberty this week, does not intend to cancel but nothing had been decided as of Tuesday afternoon. Head coach Walt Mangan did say it's likely the game will be moved to Saturday. He added the decisions should be made Wednesday morning.
Most schools, including Memorial and PN-G, have canceled the sub varsity contests for this week.
One other change because of Gustav is the I Beat Bob West Contest. It has been moved back to Thursday’s Port Arthur News for this week only.
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