CHINA SPRING, Texas — The China Spring Cougars are returning to fall practice, but for this season due to UIL re-alignment, they will play in 4A Division two football as opposed to division one.
"If we wanna be the best, we gotta play the best and we're gonna play physical, fast, athletic teams. Teams that have multiple division one kids and teams that don't," head coach, Tyler Beatty said.
"Definitely excited to play against them have that competition against us and kind of step back into this area of the region in the district," quarterback Matthew Battles said.
The Cougars fell short of the expectations they set for themselves last year. The team enters this season with a chip on their shoulder.
"One thing that I admire the most about our kids is they hate to lose so much. You know, they love to win, but they hate to lose more and picking up where we left off of this is where we fell short. We want to obviously make sure that we're stacking pennies and making the small things count for the bigger goal," Beatty said.
China Spring lost some key seniors from previous seasons but the Cougars look to honor those before them and leave their own mark.
"It's obviously a lot of pressure just coming from the past that we've had. It's very exciting to be back there with the o-line we have. It's very nice, you know, we got a really good group of guys up there. You know, they work their tails off day in and day out," Battles said.
"Our biggest thing is for these kids to come in as freshmen and watch and learn and grow and then eventually lead to whenever they leave China Spring, it's in better hands than it was when they got here," Beatty said.
China Spring opens the season on August 30 against the Franklin Lions.
