VIDOR, Texas — It is a special time of the year with high school football playoffs getting started later this week. Twenty-two of our local teams have qualified for the playoffs, including Vidor.
The Pirates have been a remarkable story all season long. Vidor got off to their best start since 1964, before being upset at Huffman Hargrave in Week 10.
Last week, in their first game since the loss at Huffman, the Pirates showed the type the heart they have.
Trailing by twenty in the district championship game against Lumberton, Vidor refused to fold.
Instead they fought their way off the ropes to take the number one seed by scoring twenty-one unanswered points.
Now they enter the Bi-District round against Chapel Hill with a number ten state ranking.
Head Coach Jeff Mathews knows he has a special group.
"It was special. You know you preach to your kids all the time about never stopping. Life isn't about how many times you get knocked down, but about how many times you can get back up. We went down 27-7 and first thing Jordan Smith came to me and said coach we're good, we're good. And you know I felt like we were good, but to hear him say that I felt like we had a chance to come back and win. And all of sudden we scored one, we scored two and I said OK, we get a stop here we've got a chance and we got the stop. The defense stepped up and it was a special moment. Really special moment."
While Vidor is taking on the fourth seed out of 9-4A-DI, Mathews knows the Chapel Hill is not your normal fourth place team. That has led to a fun back and forth between Mathews and Chapel Hill Head Coach Jeff Riordan.
"They're not a number four team. At one point of time they were in the top five in the state. We actually got the Harris Polls today, they're ranked ahead of us. You know I told him that. He's such a trickster just like me. He picks on me all day and I've been picking on him all day. It's going to be fun to play him. You know I told him I'm (0-2) against him and I'm going to try to make that a little bit closer. He said it's going to be (1-2) after this week, but I think he's trying to snowbird there a little bit. He's pretty good."