Cerny‘s debut successful but costly
Monday, September 3, 2002
Area Football
Mike Forman, Victoria Advocate Sports Writer
Shiner Comanche Football | Return to Shiner Home Page
Steve Cerny had to temper his celebration after Shiner’s 14-7 season-opening win over Poth on Friday night. Cerny was happy to win his first game as a head coach and was extremely pleased with the effort given by his team.
But Cerny was also concerned about the condition of starting quarterback Garet Pustka. Pustka suffered a stress fracture in his right leg and Cerny won’t learn until sometime this week how many games the junior will miss.
Cerny felt terrible for Pustka, who broke his finger in last year’s season opener against Schulenburg and missed considerable playing time. "It’s too bad for Garet," Cerny said of Pustka, who rushed 20 times for 71 yards against Poth. "Especially after what happened to him last season. We just hope to get him back as soon as we can."
Cerny was encouraged by his squad’s performance, which came on the road against a Class 2A Poth team that hadn’t lost a regular-season game since 1999.
"It was hot, so it was a battle from that standpoint," Cerny said. "But we were sound defensively and we didn’t turn the ball over or do anything wrong on offense." Class 1A Shiner has only four players playing both offense and defense and Cerny believes that was a factor in the win over Poth.
An even bigger factor was a fake field-goal attempt that turned into a 6-yard touchdown pass from Quentin Wright to Desmond Brooks.
"Coach (Rhonnie) Lester put that play in this year" Cerny said. "It was good timing for us to do it. We felt pretty confident that play would work."
Shiner’s other score came on a 54-yard run by Chris Baer, who carried 17 times for 135 yards. Cerny said sophomore R.J. Lester will start at quarterback this week when Shiner visits Schulenburg.
"Our defense has really looked good," Cerny said. "With the exception of losing Garet, we felt pretty good coming out of that game."
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