Youth football: Hurricane boys take home big trophies

The Hurricanes have blown through Texas this month, despite the fact that heart of the Atlantic storm season in some time away.

The Farm League Hurricanes scored the Houston Select Football League City Championship with a 14-0 win over the HSFL Texans May 7 and then followed it with a 14-6 triumph over the Allen Wild Dawgz in the state championship in Waco the following weekend.

HSFL is a select league of sixth-eighth grade players. The teams are not affiliated with any school. This year's city championship game was a rematch of last year's game when the Hurricane beat the Texans 29-0.

In the State Championship game, the Wild Dawgz jumped out to an early 6-0 lead. Late in the second quarter the Hurricane recovered a Wild Dawgz fumble and scored, tying the game at 6-6.

And there the score stayed until, with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter, Hurricane QB Mac Owen dropped back to pass and finding no receivers open, scampered around left end for 18 yards and the score. The Hurricane made the 2-point conversion, leaving the score 14-6.

With about 35 seconds left, the Wild Dawgz were still in the game, driving all the way to the Hurricane 15-yard line. But the Hurricane defense then held and denied to yield another yard.

Hurricane head coach Frank Sturgis said the City Championship game was everything he thought it was going to be, tough and exciting. On the opening kickoff, the Hurricanes ran the ball all the way into the end zone for a touchdown, or at least the 'Canes thought they had scored. Unfortunately the great run was neutralized by a blocking in the back call.

"Penalties were an enemy," said Sturgis. "Definitely on the kickoff. That could have really given us a lot of momentum.

But the penalty flag took and then it gave back. The Texans had their scoring chance after the Hurricanes were forced to punt. The snap sailed over the punter's reach and rolled into the Hurricane end zone for what should have been a gift safety for the Texans. However, this time the penalty flag flew against the Texans wiping the two points off the scoreboard.

With a minute to go before the half, Hurricane quarterback and league MVP Owen connected with Jack McHugh for the first score of the game. With an extra point, the score was 7-0 at halftime.

The third quarter remained scoreless with both teams turning the ball over. At 2:59 left in the quarter, Hurricane running back Chris Howard took the handoff surging through the right side of his line, cut back left in the secondary and went all the way for the second touchdown of the game. The extra point made the score 14-0 and the game was out of reach.

"We had a couple of plays that if one guy would have followed the hole we would have scored," said Sturgis.