Ricebirds face Cougars today
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

The Ricebirds will play in the playoffs today for the fourth time in the last five years when they travel to Traylor Stadium Rosenberg to take on the La Marque Cougars.

With the game scheduled for kickoff 2 p.m. today, the Ricebirds had an extra day of practice Friday to prepare for La Marque.

Head Coach Bob Gillis said his team has progressed well through the week as the 'Birds got ready for their first-round playoff match.

"Practices have been good and very intense," Gillis said. "We've gone back to work on some of the things we felt like we need to work on. We've had a good week and I'm glad we had an extra day to prepare."

Though in different districts, La Marque and El Campo are about as familiar with each other as any local pair of rivals could be. The two teams have met in the post-season four times in the past 11 seasons. Today's match marks the fifth meeting.

La Marque touts a 4-0 advantage in the series and has a unique occurrence in every game thus far: Each time the Cougars have defeated El Campo, they have won the state championship. La Marque claimed the state title in 1995 without defeating the Ricebirds. El Campo lost to Clear Brook in the first round that year.

Gillis hopes to see a change in the series record today and knows that his team will be ready to play.

"I know we're very excited about playing La Marque," he said. "I know we're not intimidated about playing La Marque. We know that they're a good football team. We know about their history and past and state championships, but I don't think that bothers anybody. We're just going to go out there and play."

The Ricebirds are scheduled to leave around 10:30 a.m. today for the bus ride to Rosenberg.

Gillis said his team will probably take that time to prepare mentally for the Cougars. He often tells players to envision themselves on the field in different game-day situations on the way to play.

"We always tell them to mentally focus on things that may or may not happen," Gillis said. "To put yourself in a situation where you think a guy is going to be lined up here, but he may be lined up not in the position that you think. So, prepare yourself for things.

"Athletics, and especially football, is not only physical but a real mental game. We know it's going to be a physical football game, we know it's going to be a long football game, so I think the mental preparation is real important for any success that we have had or will have."

The winner of today's game will advance to play either Houston Smiley or Lumberton either Friday or Saturday. Those two teams played Friday night, but as of presstime, information on the outcome of the game was unavailable.

No site or time will be official until after Saturday's game, but preliminary discussions have taken place to ease a decision.

All schools prefer a neutral site and will pursue that option first. If El Campo faces Smiley, likely sites of the game will be Traylor Stadium or Rhodes Stadium in Katy. A Lumberton match may mean moving the game to Pearland or Deer Park.