By Valeria Velasco, Sports and News Editor
December, 2021
KAC’s flag football team acquired two victories out of the four games they played this year in their division, the Central Texas Flag Football Texas Charter School Academic and Athletic League. Both of those games came against archrival KIPP Austin Brave.
KAC’s division games came against Brave and East Austin College Prep. Due to the great efforts of our athletes, they were able to beat our Brave 26-20 in the teams’ first meeting. Erik Gonzalez, a junior, described the game as “ an easy game all around.”
“Put Brave in a grave”, he joked after the game.
In the second game against KAB, Brave failed to show up on time, so the Cardinals earned an automatic win by forfeit.
Unlike their games against Brave, their games against East Austin College Prep were close but ultimately resulted in two losses. During their first game, the team lost by three points, 21-24. Ricardo Torres, a junior, when explaining the game said, “It was a close one. We had them at first, then they scored one touchdown.”
For their second game against East Austin, the Cardinals lost by seven points, 31-38. Roder Rocha, a junior, said, “We had them the first half, but we let the idea of excitement and success go through their heads which was no bueno and made us sloppy, causing us to lose the game”.
As for games outside of their division, the team lost to Wimberly, 7-32, scoring only in the fourth quarter. When describing the game, sophomore Jose Gonzalez, “The game yesterday was, in my opinion, a good game. The team was working together throughout it, however, there were problems with the refs and them not making their calls right and making it hard for us to play fair. But overall it was a good game and the team has really come together and improved a lot.”
Their final game against Headwaters was a success. KAC won by a touchdown, pulling ahead for a final score of 21-14. The team put valiant effort into their last game. Players described this game as “easy” and “very successful”.
Compared to seasons in the past, the team seems to be on the rise. During the 2020- 2021 season, the Cardinals only won one game out of five. That win came against Brave. The difference this year came from the team’s offense. Although most games this year were close, there was be a significant point improvement in contrast to last year’s season.
When head coach Andres Alfaro was asked midseason about his projections for the rest of the year he said, “We have had a strong year with the leadership of our captains. We are currently 2-2 and fighting to earn the top spot in our division to be crowned Division Champions. I believe we will make a deep run in the playoffs and hopefully keep that momentum to advance to the state championship. We have an extremely talented team and if we continue to stay to improve each week, there is no reason why our goals can’t be met this year”.
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