Tribe eyes explosive Broncos

[KFDM COOP]

Tribe eyes explosive Broncos

PORT ARTHUR NEWS GAME OF THE WEEK: PN-G AT DAYTON

By Tom Halliburton

The Port Arthur News

DAYTON -- Matt Burnett has been through this sort of final-week football before now. The Indians chief gladly would settle for his school's same familiar result, too.

Port Neches-Groves brings its District 22-4A co-championship to a newly renovated Bronco Stadium tonight at 7 p.m.

Unfortunately for the 7-2 and 6-0 Indians, the Dayton defense is not a newly renovated look at all. Coach Jerry Stewart enters Dayton (6-3 and 5-1) into this regular-season finale with the same old defense.

Yet Burnett has a few pleasant memories from 1996 and 2003 on how to conduct the final regular season week's proceedings with a 4A district championship in the hand. Fact is, those final regular wins in 1996 at Bridge City and 2003 at Beaumont Ozen constitute two of the more memorable trails to victory in recent Indians' lore.

In each case, the Indians hit the road, won by one point and came back to The Reservation with the entire piece of a district title pie rather than a share of it. That's exactly how these seniors feel about 2007. They never intended to share any titles with anybody.

Sporting the league's No. 1-ranked defense and a much-improved offense, Dayton has plenty of other ideas. The Broncos have shut out four of their last five opponents, really peaking last week before a Mid-County audience in Bulldog Stadium.

Dayton 63, Nederland 0 certainly got the attention of Indians' fans, players and coaches. Not that PN-G needed a reminder after Dayton's 33-2 victory in Indian Stadium a year ago.

So the Indians can travel toward Liberty County without a mandate to win, but try to convey any such sentiment to PN-G's seniors. They are one game away from a season-long goal and their eyes are fixed on the prize.

"Our seniors are thinking about Dayton," Indians senior defensive tackle Jody McDonald told The News in a Tuesday interview -- just a day after the school learned that it would host a bidistrict playoff game next Friday against Galena Park. "I don't really want anyone to look ahead at all. Dayton always has been a good team."

And so the mid-week passed and 22-4A co-champions maintained the eye of the Tiger on the Broncos.

"They would like to be the district champion and that's pretty much what they told me," Burnett said. "We've been in this spot before where we've qualified for the playoffs and played a good opponent on the road.

"Obviously, they're very good. They have a lot of talent and they're well-coached. Coach Stewart does a great job with them."

Although many Indians' fans might have complained prior to this season, the same can be said by Dayton's Stewart about PN-G's head coach. Matt has joined Dayton's Stewart, West Orange-Stark's Dan Hooks, and Nederland's Larry Neumann as the winningest coach in his school's history.

When PN-G clinched its home win over Beaumont Central last Friday, the Indians poured the water bucket over their winningest coach.

"They were very aware of it, yet I never told them," said Burnett. "I haven't had a whole lot of time to reflect on it, because we're so submerged into the season, but it's a good milestone.

[NDNWarrior]

Good article.  PNG will be ready for Dayton, you can bet on that.

PNG 21

Dayton 17

Scalp 'em, NDN's!

[WarPaint]

I have no use for anything Tom H. says he has been 1 sided against PNG until now when he wants to jump on a winning bandwagon!  he can :-* my ARSE! > > > :-*

[big_james]

Front page of the Port Arthur News states

Co-Champs battle

Looks like Port Arthur News knows something the rest of us don't

I do have to thank the Port Arthur News for the Friday Night Experince. I love see the Mid-County teams on TV

[WarPaint]

Port Arthur News OK but TH --&u@!(  him!