By Michael Adams
michael@otssports.com
BASTROP – There’s something special brewing in the Lost Pines that’s following a familiar script for the Bastrop football program.
If you haven’t heard the name Weston Nielsen, don’t worry. You will.
The freshman quarterback for the Bears is making his introduction tour and has Bastrop (5-2, 2-1 District 13-5A-II) on the path towards a district championship. Should he be successful, it will be Bastrop’s first district title in 14 years, when another unknown quarterback made his introduction.
In the present day, in front of a near packed house at BISD Memorial Stadium on Friday, Nielsen continued his introductory tour with four touchdown performance to lead the Bears to a 34-7 win over cross-town rival Cedar Creek. And he only played in one half of the game.
It’s a far contrast from his first game in Week 3, where Westwood ran over, through, and around Bastrop’s defense, while the Warriors defense shut down Nielsen and the offense en route to a 59-7 trouncing of the Bears. Bastrop head coach Jake Greidl called the loss to Westwood “a baptism.”
If the Westwood game was Nielsen’s baptism, the past two weeks has been his confirmation.
Nielsen was thrusted into the starting quarterback role after a Week 2 injury to Quntaelyn Joyner sidelined the junior for the rest of the season.
It’s a rarity for a coach to put a freshman as the starting quarterback for a varsity team at the high school level. However, Greidl said he hasn’t been around a freshman that prepares as well as Neilsen, and added that “age is just a number.”
Nielsen, however, said he didn’t know if he was ready for that responsibility at 15 years old.
“I was really nervous,” Neilsen said. “I felt a lot of pressure (at first), but not anymore. I just got pulled up (from junior varsity), I wasn’t ready for it. But the game got slower and I got more settled.”
Following the loss to Westwood, Nelsen had a coming out party and threw for 451 yards and had three touchdown passes to lead the Bears to a 48-42 win over the Pflugerville Panthers on Sept. 18. It opened a few eyes, including those of the coaching staff at the University of Oregon, who gave Nielsen his first of what likely will be many scholarship offers.
However, another humbling experience was around the corner.
In Bastrop’s district opener, Comal Pieper handed the Bears another devastating blow to a promising season with a 63-22 loss and a matchup with undefeated Kerrville Tivy looming.
Hardly anyone gave Bastrop a chance against a storied program like Tivy. Nielsen said he even had doubts the Bears could pull off an upset against the Antlers. But anyone who’s been around Bastrop’s football program in the past 15 years has seen this script before.
On a crisp fall evening on Oct. 9, 2009, the Bears pulled off arguably the biggest upset in the program’s modern history in a game no one gave them a chance to win despite a 5-0 record going into the game with Westlake.
Yet with a young and fairly unknown quarterback leading the way, Bastrop defeated Chaparrals 24-21 at Chaparral Stadium. That quarterback was Bastrop’s all-time leading passer Josiah Monroe, who compiled a 20-12 record as a starter and led the Bears to the 2010 Class 4A state quarterfinals.
Fast forward 14 years later to Sept. 29, 2023, Nielsen has his coming out party and throws for four touchdowns to lead Bastrop to a 41-22 upset of the then-undefeated Antlers.
“(The win over Tivy) was huge, not just for the program, but for Weston’s confidence,” Griedl said. “We’re not there yet, but a win like that starts turning heads, people begin asking, ‘what’s going on in Bastrop?’
“When you beat a storied program like Tivy, it tells the kids that it doesn’t matter who we play, we have a shot.”
For Nielsen, he knows there’s more work to do. After all, he’s still just a freshman playing a position that is typically reserved for someone with more experience.
There’s sure to be a few bumps along the road, but Nielsen remains poised and aiming to bring Bastorp its first district championship since 2009, the same year Monroe pulled off a big upset against a storied program.
The road to the district championship won’t be easy.
Bastrop still has three games left on the schedule, including home games against Veterans Memorial (4-2, 1-1) next week and Liberty Hill (4-3, 2-1) on Oct. 27.
The Bears cannot afford any hiccups in those games, but Griedl said the winds have shifted and he’s confident his team will be ready, including Nielsen.
“If you ask him, he’ll tell you there’s a lot of work to be done, and there is,” Griedl said. “Right now, he’s helping us win games and it’s exciting to watch. I’ve never been around a freshman quarterback that prepares the way he does ”
Regardless of how the season plays out, Nielsen and the Bears are already guaranteed a winning season. It’s the first since 2019.
The even better news for Griedl and the Bastrop faithful, Nielsen is just getting started and will be in Bastrop for three more years, writing a new script.