GLADEWATER TOPS SABINE | Bears get another win in series, 49-14

Two ETBlitz.com-area programs – old rivals – met again Friday night, and even though by all documented accounts, Sabine has never beaten Gladewater in football, the Cardinals are willing to try.

This year, Gladewater made the trek to James Bamberg Stadium on the Sabine campus for the annual renewal of the rivalry on the football field, got off to a great start, and unfortunately for Sabine and its fans, the Bears never took their foot off the gas pedal in a 49-14 win.

Sabine (2-4 overall) has lost four straight after opening 2-0, and is now 0-2 in District 8-3A, Division I play. The Cards will play at Atlanta next Friday, Oct. 11, a 7 p.m. kickoff – Atlanta lost to state-ranked Jefferson on Friday night, 43-14.

Gladewater (3-3 overall and 1-1 in district) will host Liberty-Eylau next Friday. L-E beat Tatum Friday night, 36-26.

Coach Jonny Louvier’s Bears scored the first four touchdowns at Sabine last night. Bryson Woods’ legs did the bulk of the work, getting the Bears in scoring position for a 3-yard run by Carsin Cooper (7-0 Gladewater).

Grafton Morgan scored a second short-yardage run to cap the Bears’ next drive, a 1-yard TD with 2:50 left in the first quarter that put GHS up 14-0.

No grind-it-out drives on the next possession: Mason Budro scored on a 39-yard play, and with 16 seconds left in the first quarter, Sabine found itself down 21-0.

Gladewater is capable of the big play – they’ve done it a few times this season – and Woods hauled in a 52-yard pass from quarterback Luke Brown on the Bears’ next drive, then caught another pass from Brown, and this one he’d score on, from 28 yards out to give the Bears just that: a 28-0 lead, and still with seven minutes to go in the half.

That’s when coach Cody Gilbert’s team punched back. No Colt Sparks – the big 6-foot-5 senior had surgery on his hand, and won’t be back this football season – so Bryce Pobuda dropped back and sent a 70-yard bomb to Hudson McNatt. McNatt got it, hauling it in for a 70-yard score, and cutting Gladewater’s lead to 28-7, just 18 seconds after Gladewater’s last score.

Sabine would make it even closer, 28-14 at the half, on a 3-yard run by Lincoln Royce.

If that got the Cards back into the game, then two third-quarter plays knocked the air out of them: a 3-yard scoring run by Budro, his second of the night, was the result of an early third quarter drive by the Bears – that’s because Jakobe Crosby caught a 47-yard pass from Brown to give Gladewater the scoring opportunity.

And just after that, when Sabine tried to make something happen on its next drive, Aubry Floyd intercepted a pass for another Bears touchdown, and a 42-14 Gladewater advantage.

The Bears would get one final score: a 4-yard run by Morgan after Gladewater’s defense managed to recover a Sabine fumble.