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John Cooper varsity teams celebrate big wins

By: Lynn Boeding
| Published 08/29/2016

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THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The John Cooper School varsity football and volleyball teams celebrated their first week of school with victories.

Varsity Volleyball

Aug. 26 away at Conroe High School (24-26, 25-20, 23-25, 25-17, 15-11) WIN

From Coach Ray Hedden: Varsity survived a great test in a very spirited environment with the Conroe student body showing a lot of support for their home team. The gym was very loud in the first set when we let a 24-20 lead slip away, losing the game 26-24.

The girls battled back taking Set 2, 25-20 with Peyton Tague hitting some key shots and Abby Frazier doing a great job setting the ball.

Moving in to Set 3, it was Conroe again, with the home crowd and momentum taking the third set, 25-23, putting our girls in a position where we had to win the final two in order to win the match.

Current kill leader, Kara O’Neal, ran a faster paced offense off current assist leader Kaylee Frazier, helping the Dragons bring home Game 4, 25-17.

The final Game 5 came with a very loud crowd backing their Tiger volleyball team and challenging Cooper to play from a very tough position. We did a good job staying focused and depending on each other, so I knew we would have to get off to a good start in order to keep the crowd noise down as much as possible. Gina Valderrama, came up with some key digs and passes along with clutch serving as she has done for us all year. Kayley Wood owned the net with some key blocks that help put the game away and setter Kaylee Frazier put our hitters in position to win. Winning 15-12 was a great way to cap off a match against a very athletic and hard-hitting Conroe Tiger team. Overall, the team fought well and hard taking a win from a good Conroe team, I am very proud they pulled it out and left with the “W."

Some key contributions were:

Kara O’Neal with 22 kills for the match

Gina Valderrama with 15 digs for the match

Kaylee Frazier with 34 assists on the Match

Abby Frazier with 16 assists on the match

Hannah Gooch with 11 digs for the match

Kayley Wood had 6 Blocks for the match

Next up for the Dragons: The Dragons travel to compete at St. Thomas Episcopal on Sept. 1 (this game was rescheduled from Aug. 29.)

Varsity Football

Aug. 26 vs. Iola High School on Pugh Field, 20-7 WIN

John Cooper won their first game of the year by defeating Iola High School 20-7.

Stats:

Passing:

Evan Minarovic was 23-46, passing for 180 yards with 2 interceptions and 1 TD.

Rushing:

Stijn Albers ran the ball 9 times for 41 yards

Emerson Raybon ran the ball 5 times for 36 yards and a TD. He had a 34 yard run for a TD.

Receiving:

Grant Huettel had 9 catches for 20 yards

Daniel Gerber had 5 catches for 55 yards

Trent Burgess had 3 catches for 44 yards and a TD

Tackles:

Preston Burnett led the team with 12 tackles and 5 tackles for loss.

Emerson Raybon had 10 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss.

Special Teams:

Jude Bugenhagen kicked two field goals (37 yards and 28 yards) and he added two extra points.

From Coach Brent Landrum:

“I could not be prouder of this group of boys. They fought hard all night long. They never trailed in the game. They handled adversity well. The defense played extremely well all night long. The defense had six interceptions. We forced eight turnovers overall. Offensively we didn’t take care of all the turnovers the defense created. We had too many dropped passes. However, the offense sustained multiple drives and scored 20 points. The offensive line played well as a unit. Overall, I was pleased with the effort of the entire team. We face Irving Cistercian this Friday night in Irving, TX for our first SPC 3A conference game.”

Next up for the Dragons: The Dragons travel to compete at Cistercian Prep on Friday, Sept. 2

Announcement: We are very pleased to announce that you can now follow Cooper football online. Home and away varsity football games will be LIVE STREAMED all season. Cooper's YouTube channel will have a link to the stream for each game. Games will also be broadcast on the Texas Sports Radio Network (TSRN). To listen to Dragon Football, simply download TSRN to your mobile device.

The Varsity Cross Country teams competed in their first meet of the season, Friday Night Lights at Bear Branch on August 26 at Bear Branch Park.

From Coach Matt Bohan: Nearly a third of Cooper’s very young team, ran in their first high school meet. As a whole, both boys and girls teams did a nice job in the wet conditions.

There weren’t many personal records set tonight, but it sure was fun to race in the mud and rain. Senior Jonathan Goodridge and sophomore Mitchell Shannon both competed in the Elite Varsity Boys 4K (2.5 mile) race with some of the best runners in the state. Goodridge held his own, finishing in 14th place with a time of 13:10. Shannon finished with a 14:39.

The girl’s team competed in the Varsity B, 2-mile race and had a nice start to their season. The team leaders were senior Claire Varnai and junior Sidney Cartwright. Varnai finished in 13:37 followed by Cartwright’s 13:44.

This was a great opening race for our team. The course was slow due to the conditions, but we are very pleased with the results and how all hard the team competed.

Next race will be the Cooper Dragon Invitational at Burroughs Park in Tomball. Races begin at 8:10 am. Cooper is excited to host a much bigger than anticipated home meet.

Next up for the Dragons: The Dragons will host the Cooper Dragon Invitational on Sept. 3 at 9.m. at Burroughs Park, Tomball, 8:10 a.m.

Upcoming varsity action at home:

Sat., Sept. 3

9 a.m. Varsity Cross Country hosts Cooper Dragon Invitational at Burroughs Park

Thurs., Sept. 8

6 p.m. Varsity Volleyball vs HCYA

Tues., Sept. 13

5:30 p.m. Varsity Volleyball vs Oak Ridge High School

Fri., Sept. 23

7 p.m. Varsity Football vs St. Andrew’s Episcopal

Tues., Sept. 27

5:30 p.m. Varsity Volleyball vs Houston Home School HHV

Fri., Sept. 30

7 p.m. Varsity Football vs Trinity Valley School • HOMECOMING

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