According to Lone Star Gridiron, Houston’s Reliant Stadium will be home to the top two title games in all of high school football. The Class 5A Division I and Division II championship games will be played December 20th at Reliant.

Traditionally with playoff games, it was left to the teams to agree on an available venue large enough and roughly between the two cities. For large metropolitan areas such as Houston and Dallas (which are frequently playing in those championships,) it was difficult to find a good venue which offered similar travel requirements. If you split the distance between Houston and Dallas, you are in Centerville which doesn’t have a stadium near large enough to accommodate the fans from both cities. The result was often that one team had a distinct advantage because the site was much closer to their fans.

Three years ago, there was a lot of talk about rotating the title games between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. For the last two years, the championships for 5A has remained in San Antonio because of contractual obligations. This year may be the beginning of that rotation.

The Toyota Center welcomes World Wrestling Entertainment’s SmackDown and ECW promotions Tuesday night at 6:30 PM. The shows will be taped back-to-back, one after the other, under the same roof on the same night! The visit will include the new lineup of wrestlers chosen in the draft between RAW, SmackDown and ECW Monday night in San Antonio.

In addition to a night of wrestling action, a special press conference will be held earlier in the day that will unveil a big announcement concerning WWE wrestling in the Bayou City. (Look for more on that to be posted tomorrow.)

Ticket prices range from $20 to $70
# Toyota Center Box Office
# Via Phone: 866-4HOUTIX (866-446-8849)
# TDD: 1-877-820-0008

The Houston area (Rosenberg) is home to a brand new and little-known professional soccer team – the Houston Leones. Founded by Juan Carlos Hernandez, president of the J. C. Hernandez Construction, Inc., the Leones play at Soccer World Center F.C., a soccer-specific facility in the city of Richmond, Texas, 32 miles (51 km) west-southwest of downtown Houston.

The Leones compete in the USL Premier Development League, a league made up of 67 teams that develops players for leagues such as the MLS (Major League Soccer). Fans of “futbol” can catch the squad Saturday at 6 PM for their match against the Mississippi Brilla.

SOCCER WORLD CENTER F.C.
6510 ROHAN RD. RICHMOND, TX 77469

It was a great evening of burning rubber, twisting metal, dollar hotdogs, and dollar beers at Houston Motorsports Park this past Saturday. Those onhand witnessed some excellent racing in a family-friendly environment.

Coming up out at HMS is

March 29th
TRUCKS DRIVE AMERICA “FREE NIGHT”
Free General Admission
ASA Pro Late Models, Pro Modifieds, Pro Stocks,
Allison Legacy Cars, Thunder Roadsters, Legends and Bandoleros

By Chris Doelle

Katy, Texas – The 2008 Southland Conference Basketball Tournament is in full swing out West at the Merrell Center in Katy, Texas. Whether you’re interested in great women’s basketball or men’s, the tournament which started yesterday for the women and today for the men is sure to please.

The winner of the brackets will get an automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Tournament featuring the top 64 teams in the nation. As sports values go, the ticket ($10-12) is well worth it for all the great roundball action.

Nick Shaw (#12) and Houstonian (Cy Creek) Matt Kingsley (#44) defend against Houstonian (Cy Falls) Devin Gibson in Stephen F. Austin’s 71-60 victory over UTSA.
Photo – J. Ronald Oswalt. Newstreamz.com

Football in the Houston area was full of "ups" and "downs" this weekend. The highest "up" had to be the Rosenberg Lamar ConsolidatedMustangs winning the 4A Division I Championship 20-14 over Copperas Cove. Jacquizz Rodgers is the undisputed King of Rosenberg Football as he led the Mustangs to a title by rushing for 240 yrds and scoring all 3 TD’s. In addition Rodgers recorded 6 tackles, caused a fumble, recovered a fumble and blocked a kick. The Mustang defense also played a great game by holding Cove to 289 yards of total offense and stopping Copperas at the 2 yard line as they went for it on 4th and goal.

One of the "lows" came when the Dayton Broncos fell to the Austin Lake Travis Cavaliers 49-13. This looked like a wild one after the 1st quarter with Lake Travis leading 14-13 with over 270 yards of combined offense. The Cavalier defense then played as well as their offense holding Dayton to 68 total yards in the 2nd & 3rd quarters while Junior QB Garrett Gilbert (one of LSG’s top three in the state) passed for amazing numbers. At one point Gilbert had 23 straight completions and finished the night with over 480 passing yards. Click below to hear the show. 

Another "low" for the Houston area came when the Galena Park North Shore Mustangs lost to the Converse Judson Rockets 28-7 at Rice Stadium. Turnovers were the name of the game. The Rockets converted all four Mustang turnovers into touchdowns enroute to the win. Click below to hear the show. 

Another big "up" came when Lone Star Gridiron‘s preseason #1 Katy Tigers (LSG was the ONLY one in the state to rank them #1) earned a spot this week to compete for their 5th State Championship due to their 66-21 victory over San Antonio Madison. The game was tied 14-14 midway through the 2nd quarter and then Katy broke it open and scored the games next 52 points. The Katy offense rolled up 477 yards of total offense. Katy will take on a tough Pfugerville Panthers squad in the title game at the Alamodome this weekend.

PLAYOFF TIME IN TEXAS BABY!!!

The Houston area had some great games this past weekend as teams fight to be the regional representative in the championships. These are the games I saw this weekend along with links to the audio created with my cohosts, Mike Wright and Ronald Oswalt of Lone Star Gridiron.

First off, Rice stadium was packed with more fans than attend a Rice game when the Katy Tigers took on the Strake Jesuit Crusaders. The fight was a lot closer than the 51-18 score suggests. The wheels fell of the Strake Jesuit wagon with 8 minutes left in the game. Click to hear coverage

Next up was a trip over the Robert Traylor Stadium to catch the La Marque Cougars versus the El Campo Ricebirds. La Marque, behind a big receiving day by Desmond Haynes (5 catches 157yds) wins over El Campo as EC was in the red zone 4 times and only came away with 6 points. Click to hear coverage
 

Our third game of the weekend was a thunderstorm – literally! The Mayde Creek Rams and the Cy Falls Eagles met up at Rhodes Stadium in Katy, Texas to decide who would move forward and the game was delayed at halftime for an hour and a half when lightning and rain halted play. Mayde Creek put up a valiant effort, but the passing game of Cy Falls (Kolby Gray had 6 TD passes with 4 of them going to Darius Bolden) was waaay too much as they ran away with it 50-7.
 

The fireworks in H-Town have just started though. Here are some of the key games this upcoming week:

Cy-Fair (7-4) vs. Lamar (10-1) )
Galena Park North Shore (11-0) vs. Pearland (10-1)
Port Neches Groves (8-3) vs. Lamar Consolidated (9-2)
Cy-Falls (9-2) vs. Stratford (8-3)
Beaumont WestBrook (10-1) vs. Fort Bend Clements (11-0)
#1 Katy (11-0) vs. Madison (7-4)
Dayton (8-3) vs. Texas City (10-1)
Waller (8-3) vs. Yates (10-0)
Lumberton (10-1) vs. La Marque (9-2)
West Orange Stark (10-1) vs. Giddings (11-0)

PLAYOFF TIME IN TEXAS BABY!!!

I will readily admit that I know very little about sports… especially baseball. So it should come as no surprise that I was a little more than clueless when I showed up for the game this afternoon and was handed a small pin announcing Jeff Bagwell’s retirement.

While I know zip about baseball, I can tell when something is up.

I noticed that more people that usual were wearing number five jersey’s and that everything around me (except for the hot dog I ate) had the number five stamped on it somewhere. There was also this photo montage and enormous sign that spelled out (using real baseballs) the number of hits Jeff Bagwell had made during his career.

Jeff’s two daughters threw the first pitch of the game, which was quite touching. I took a couple of extra photos during the game (including my scrumdeliescious hot dog) and posted them to the HouMetBlog Flickr page.

Picture originally uploaded by boregasmic

7’6″ Rockets center Yao Ming married long-time girlfriend, Ye Li, in Shanghai on Monday. Ye Li is 6’2″ and plays for the Chinese national team…geez, can you imagine how super-tall their babies will be?? More pictures of the wedding can be found at JustJared.

The Texas Copperheads wrap up their inaugural arena football season with a home game against the top-ranked Rio Grand Valley Dorados, Saturday, July 28 at 7PM. The Copperheads play their home games at the amazing Berry Center in Cypress (Northwest Houston.)

It has been a rough opening season as the expansion team has had trouble stringing together anything resembling a win streak, but that doesn’t stop them from putting on one heck of a great show. For the final game, Lone Star Gridiron and the Texas Copperheads are teaming up to give away FREE tickets to the first 25 to email lonestargridiron@gmail.com. Simply include your name as it appears on your identification and if you are one of the first 25, the tickets will be waiting at the Will Call window.

I have personally attended all of their home games and several road games as I do their podcast, and I can assure you there is no better sports value in town (even if you do have to pay for your own tickets.)

In addition to the free tickets from Lone Star Gridiron, season ticket holders will be able to exchange any unused ’07 season tickets for a complimentary seat at the team’s final game of the 2007 campaign.