Senior Kurt Timmons (pictured) and his Hays 7-on-7 passing league teammates steadily improved throughout the summer. The Rebels finished one play away from qualifying for the state tournament three weeks ago, and then wrapped up the 7-on-7 season with a second place finish in the final tournament of the summer last week at Shelton Stadium. Two-a-day practices will officially begin for the 2010 Rebels on Aug. 2. (Photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)

by JASON GORDON

The way the summer 7-on-7 season started for Hays High, no one quite knew what to expect of the young Rebels.

By the time it ended, however, Hays was playing its best, and that should bode well once two-a-day practices begin on Aug. 2.

After finishing one pass and two yards away from a berth in the State 7-on-7 tournament during its own qualifying tournament late last month, the Rebels finished up the regular season strong.

Hays knocked off Class 5A Bowie in the regular-season tournament semifinals 34-27, before falling 40-26 to a talented Dripping Springs team in the finals last week at Shelton Stadium.

The Rebels made a lot of progress throughout the summer, which saw Hays suffer a couple of lopsided losses in early-season tournaments.

“It was very clear that we came a long way as a team,” Hays coach Trace Shelton said. “Beating a team like Bowie who had beaten us earlier in the season was a big step for our guys. I thought we had a shot to win our last tournament, but Dripping Springs was a team that seemed to have our number all year. I think if the season would have lasted a week or two more, we would have been the best team in our league.”

Against Bowie, Hays scored on its first five possessions to take command of the game.

With co-starting quarterback Mason Cervenka out of town on vacation during the final tournament, Caleb Kimbro threw two touchdown passes to Michael Romero, and a TD each to Kurt Timmons, Ty Green and Jackson Schaubhut to help the Rebels take a commanding 34-20 lead late in the game.

Against Dripping Springs, after Hays’ Francisco Marin picked off a pass on defense, Timmons made a terrific grab in traffic for a touchdown to tie the score 20-20 at halftime.

Dripping Springs took control in the second half, though, and cruised to the regular-season tournament championship.

Still, no one on the Hays side was too disappointed with the effort, considering the strides the team made.

“I feel we not only got better skill-wise, but our team chemistry grew,” Kimbro said. “We started out slow because this was all kind of new to us. After we started to learn we could compete with the higher-level teams we really started to gel.”

Cervenka agreed that the Hays players really came together on the field over the summer. “You had a lot of sophomores and juniors that had never played at the varsity level before,” Cervenka said. “It took us awhile to get used to playing with some of our seniors and to get used to playing at the speed of the varsity game. When things started coming together for us, it was a lot more fun out there later in the season. I think we’re ready for two-a-days. Hopefully we showed the coaches we can pass the ball and score. That will give us one more weapon to go with our great running game and great offensive line.”

Trace Shelton said he was proud of the two quarterbacks who will be fighting for the starting job on varsity this fall.

“Both quarterbacks made huge leaps forward,” he said. “By the end of the season, they were really reading defenses and not making some of the mental errors they made earlier on.

When Caleb was out on vacation, Mason did a great job two weeks ago. Caleb did the same when Mason was gone last week. They really compliment each other well and bring a lot of skill to the field.”

Kimbro said now with the 7-on-7 season officially over, he can’t wait until the Rebels step onto the field for the first official day of summer two-a-day workouts Aug. 2.

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” Kimbro said. “I can’t even go to sleep.”