By Michael Adams
Austin Sports Journal
Bastrop has a chance Friday to win its first district football championship in 15 years.
I was there for the last one, and should the Bears defeat Liberty Hill tomorrow night, I’ll have been there for this one, too.
An interesting fact that a lot of people don’t realize, in the last two decades only three teams have kept Westlake from winning a district championship – Lake Travis, Bowie and Bastrop.
Ok, so the Bears did share the 25-5A championship in 2009 with Westlake. Still, what the 2009 Bastrop football team accomplished was a sight to see.
To understand the significance of just sharing a district title with a program like Westlake, you have to remember where Bastrop was before.
At the time, Bastrop was in Class 5A which was the top classification in Texas. Due to Bastrop’s geography, the Bears were always placed in a district with Bowie, Westlake, Austin High, Akins and Anderson with the occasional appearances by San Marcos, Pflugerville, Seguin and Connally.
And they struggled.
In 2006, the Bears went 3-7 in David Hallbrooik’s last season as head coach and finished sixth in district with the only district wins against Akins and Anderson.
When former Westlake coach Ron Schroder took over in 2007, hope returned to Bastrop football. However, Schroder only stayed for one season and went 1-9 with the only district win being a 15-14 victory over Akins.
With their third coach in three years, a Gerald Perry-led Bastrop team went 2-8 in 2008, but again finished 1-6 in District 25-5A. They were overmatched against nearly every district opponent other than Akins.
But if you watched the 2008 Bears, you got a sense something was about to change.
During the Westlake game that year, Perry handed the starting quarterback job to a young sophomore named Josiah Monroe. As they say in the movies, the rest is history.
Monroe didn’t immediately turn Bastrop’s fortunes around, but even as a sophomore, he scored a lot of points and was a lot of fun to watch. After Monroe took over in 2008, Bastrop’s offense averaged 25.4 points per game. Prior to that, the Bears’ averaged just 18 points a game.
Then in 2009, Bastrop’s fortunes turned around.
The Bears started the 2009 season with a 24-14 win over Hays in the opening week, then went on to win their next four games to enter the Oct. 9 showdown with Westlake at Chaparral Stadium undefeated.
The excitement around that game was something to see. Neighboring Smithville can lay claim to the title of the town where “hope floats,” referencing the 1998 Sandra Bullock movie filled in the small town in eastern Bastrop County. But that hope spread to Bastrop as the Bears were the talk of the town.
Signs filled downtown shops and the booster club put together a shuttle to take fans to the game. It was Friday Night Lights fever in Bastrop.
The Chaps were the gold standard in Austin-area 5A football back then. There was an intimidation factor with Westlake that is still there today. However, I’d argue that it was probably bigger in 2009 because Lake Travis was still in Class 4A and just starting its state championship streak.
Despite losing the previous five meetings with the Chaps by an average 18.6 points, the Bears themed their practice that week, “shock the world.”
When it was game time, Westlake jumped to an early 7-0 lead, and it looked as though Bastrop was going to be no match for the mighty Chaparrals. However, Monroe and the Bears looked like a team of destiny in the second quarter and took a 17-14 lead into the locker room at halftime.
In those days, Twitter was a great place to follow a football game if you couldn’t be there in attendance. I remember the buzz at halftime across Twitter was as loud as Chaparral Stadium as the Chaps were put on upset alert.
Westlake retook the lead in the third quarter and held onto it into the final minutes of the game. As it looked like the Chaps were going to survive, Monroe connected with Josh Taylor for what would be the game-winning touchdown.
As Westlake looked to put together a game-winning drive in the final minutes, Bernard Blake intercepted a pass Conner Price to seal the biggest upset in Bastrop football history.
Bastrop had indeed “shocked the world.”
The Bears finished the season 9-1 with a Week 11 loss to Bowie that forced Bastrop to share the district title with Westlake.
That 2009 season was special for so many reasons. It was the first year the Bears played home games at BISD Memorial Stadium, the site of this Friday’s district championship game with Liberty Hill. It was also the Bastrop’s best regular season in the last 30 years.
But, I think, what made it really special was that it is what Texas high school football is all about – community.
Bastrop is a special community that comes together to celebrate the good times and be there for each other during the hard times. In that year, a community came together to cheer for the underdog, and for once, the underdog persevered.