Cy Ridge yet to find its ceiling, defeats Clear Brook | From the K. Cook Archive

Originally published by the Houston Chronicle, Local Sports Desk (November 27, 2016)

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The motto for the Cy Ridge Rams this season was ‘no ceiling.’

Head coach Gary Thiebaud and his coaching staff looked at the assemblage of veteran, physically-dominant talent up and down the roster, and determined that there was no upper bound to what the Rams could accomplish this season.

Now, for the third consecutive time in the playoffs, Thiebaud, et al. were again proved right.

Cy Ridge looked downright dominant, shellacking Clear Brook 49–14 at NRG Stadium Saturday evening, scoring 28 unanswered points in the final two quarters without the aid of senior back Trelon Smith, last year’s 17–6A Offensive MVP and the favorite to repeat when the district awards are given out later this year.

Smith is a difference-maker, rushing for 3,500 yards and 40 touchdowns in the last two regular seasons, but Cy Ridge prevailed largely without him. Smith finished his day late in the first quarter with 70 yards on 11 carries.

Losing a team’s best player can be disastrous. In the game played at NRG immediately prior, Friendswood versus Cinco Ranch, Friendswood went from the prohibitive favorite in the contest to losing 34–7 after quarterback Tyler Page went down on the first play of the game.

Not so, Cy Ridge.

Junior running back Alex Jacobs logged his best game of the season, rushing 18 times for 214 yards and two touchdowns, including a 59-yard touchdown rush in the first quarter and a 78-yard touchdown rush to start the third quarter, pushing Cy Ridge’s lead to 28–14.

Thiebaud said that he learned some tricks from Cy Ranch head coach Gene Johnson over the years, one of them being to get backups reps early in the season and consistently, so when their numbers are called, they are ready to step up, just like Jacobs did Saturday night.

“Alex has had a good season,” Thiebaud said. “We’ve tried to manage Trelon’s reps, his number of carries, and rotate. I learned that from Gene Johnson, watching him rotate backs. We try to do that. And Alex had a really good year and showed out tonight. All those reps he got during the season really paid off.”

Senior quarterback Tyson Williams, who has consistently proven himself a rushing threat all season long, carried the ball 14 times for 75 yards and a season-high three touchdowns.

Thiebaud credited Williams for laboring in relative obscurity, orchestrating the offense that has carried Smith to such acclaim.

“Tyson doesn’t get a lot of attention, and he deserves a lot of attention,” Thiebaud said. “There’s so many other weapons, but he’s the catalyst to all that. He gets the plays. He gets the ball to the players. He checks plays out there. He does a great job on the zone reads where he pulls it and gets some big plays like he got today. He’s really done an awesome job for us this year and he’s a great leader.”

Senior rusher Mike Ajayi also scored for the Rams, on a six-yard rush midway through the third quarter, finishing with 11 carries for 76 yards.

The dominant rushing performances all up and down the lineup, as the Rams racked up 455 rushing yards in the contest, were a credit to the offensive line, per Thiebaud, which he says takes every bit as much pride in every rushing yard and touchdown as the running backs.

“Those guys play hard together,” Thiebaud said. “As I’ve said numerous times, it starts up front. They take pride in getting yards. And they think that MVP that Trelon got last year, they got that. And the rushing title he got last year? They got that.”

It is hard to argue the offensive line is not deserving of every possible accolade, as the Rams managed to average 7.8 yards per carry on 58 carries throughout the game, even with Smith sitting for most of it.

A pivotal moment in the contest occurred after Cy Ridge’s second touchdown, as the Rams lined up and surprised Clear Brook with an onside kick, which senior wide receiver Kevin LeDee — in on special teams — recovered, giving the Rams another possession which ended four plays later with a Williams touchdown rush.

The decision might have seemed surprising, but Thiebaud said that the planning that led up to that moment was a week-long process, starting with film study, and ending after a careful evaluation of the first two kickoffs prior to the onside attempt.

“ A.J. Wilson, my special teams coach, said, ‘hey, look at this,’” Thiebaud said. “We looked at it on video, and we thought it was there. So I said, ‘let’s rep it up,’ and we did, and it looked pretty good in practice.”

Win, or go home. The playoffs is a special, one-and-done kind of season unto itself, and the postseason calls for a certain brand of tenacity, ingenuity and controlled risk.

The Rams are embracing the philosophy of doing whatever it takes to win.

“You come into this game and you’re trying to advance,” Thiebaud said. “I told them, anything’s open, anything’s available. And we watched, and saw it was there, and I told them to run it. And we got up two scores, and then ran it and we hit it, just like we did in practice.”

Everything is breaking Cy Ridge’s way, which has very little to do with luck, and everything to do with preparation and intensity. Round four, the regional finals, is rarefied air, and the Rams are proving that, not only do they belong, but with a dominant 49–14 regional semifinal victory, they may belong in an even loftier echelon.

After all, like Thiebaud and his Rams have said all year long, this team has no ceiling.

“We came into spring ball and we felt like we had something to prove,” Thiebaud said. “That was kind of our motto going into the year. As we got started, we said, ‘there’s no ceiling for this football team.’ So we grabbed that and hung onto it, and they believe it.”

After Saturday’s victory, it would be hard to believe otherwise.

The Rams will take on Cinco Ranch in the regional finals Saturday, Dec. 3 at TDECU Stadium on the campus of the University of Houston at 1 p.m.

Originally published at https://www.chron.com on November 27, 2016.