Tigers drop third straight in loss to Lake View

A 20-point halftime deficit was too much to overcome for the Snyder football team as they fell to San Angelo Lake View 32-19 at San Angelo Stadium Thursday.
Head coach Wes Wood said it was the Tigers’ shortcomings early in the game that allowed Lake View to win.
“It was a game of momentum. We gave up a 14-point swing right at the beginning of the game after starting exactly how we wanted to,” he said. “We just have to grow up and be more mature. Things like that are going to happen. We were still the better team and if we could have stopped the bleeding and started pounding again like we did in the beginning, we would have had that momentum.”
After forcing a three-and-out on the Chiefs’ first drive, the Tigers put together a long drive on their first possession, reaching the Lake View 10-yard line. Lake View forced a fumble, however, which Austin Bandy returned 90 yards for a Chiefs’ touchdown.
Snyder got back into the red zone, thanks to an impressive one-handed reception by Jorge Olivarez, but failed to get into the end zone, instead settling for a 27-yard field goal by Olivarez. Snyder trailed 6-3 at the end of the first quarter.
Lake View dominated the second quarter, scoring on three straight drives, the final touchdown a 74-yard pass from Albert Rodriguez to Bandy. The Chiefs opted to go for two on the score, but Corey Landin picked off the pass and returned it 97 yards for 2 points.
Snyder struggled to get any offense going in the quarter and trailed by 20 points at the half, 25-5.
On Snyder’s first drive of the second half, quarterback Leeroy Tavarez was intercepted by Zeke Davila, and on the ensuing drive, Rodriguez found Johnny Espinosa from 5 yards out for his third passing touchdown of the game.
Snyder began to find some rhythm on offense late in the third quarter when Jayden Samaniego caught a pass from Tavarez and battled his way into the end zone for a 28-yard score, trimming the lead down to 32-12 heading into the fourth quarter. Snyder’s defense came up with a stop to start the fourth quarter when Isacc Perez recovered a fumble forced by Tim Whitney at the Lake View 19-yard line. Kaden Vess later capitalized on the turnover with a 1-yard touchdown run.
The Tiger defense would step up again when Troy Botts’ sack of Rodriguez lost the Chiefs 14 yards and forced a punt. A pair of interceptions on the next two Snyder drives would seal the Lake View win however, their first over the Tigers in more than a decade.
Despite a third straight loss to start the season, the Tigers ran the ball well, something they struggled to do a week ago. Greg Williams finished with 218 yards on 34 carries and as a team, the Tigers ran for 221 yards. Several new faces stepped up on defense and Wood acknowledged the youth his team has.
“There are kids that are spread out and they are doing a good job,” he said. “The effort is pretty good, but we have to get better. We can’t bust coverages, we have to catch the ball. It’s tough right now. Obviously it is hard to be super positive right now. We’re just banged up.”
Wood remained confident the team will improve, despite the early struggles.
“We’ll be fine, we just have to keep chugging,” he said. “We just couldn’t find a way to turn that dial and execute when it really mattered tonight. Unfortunately, it did not go our way, but we will go back to the drawing board and keep grinding. That’s all we can do.”
Next week’s game against Andrews will be homecoming for Snyder High School, with kick-off set for 7 p.m.