Posted: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:16 PM - 12,362 Readers

By: Gaylon Krizak

Hank Carter and Darrell Crayton had experiences last weekend that were at the same time alike and dissimilar.

Carter's night was less fun. Already missing their most experienced receiver (Conner Floyd, out since the season opener against Westlake), Carter's Lake Travis (Austin) Cavaliers went into Friday's home matchup with Aledo without quarterback Michael Brewer, who was injured the previous week against Hendrickson but was believed ready to return.

The result was a 14-10 loss to Johnathan Gray and the Bearcats in a battle of last season's Class 4A state champions. Aledo, which won 4A Division II, got 145 yards on 31 carries from Gray, who scored the winning touchdown on a 1-yard run midway through the fourth quarter.

The loss was Carter's first as the Cavs' head coach and was Lake Travis' first since 2007, a span of 48 games. The melancholy that descended upon suburban southwest Austin was all too familiar on the city's east side, and for reasons that only included football.

The Johnston Rams defeated Travis in their penultimate game in 2003, then lost or had to forfeit their next 41 games. Then there no longer was a Johnston High School — it was closed by the state for poor academic performance and re-opened as Eastside Memorial (Austin). The renamed Panthers hadn't played a varsity game since 2007: they played junior-varsity schedules in 2008-09.

In its first two games as a varsity team, Eastside Memorial (a 4A school) lost 58-0 to 3A Rockdale and 43-7 to 2A Lago Vista. But on Thursday, the Panthers got two rushing touchdowns each from Tylanedor Hill and Desmine Shaw and held off St. Andrew's, a small Austin private school, 42-34.

That ended the Eastside Memorial/Johnston streak at 43 consecutive losses. Next up for the Panthers? San Antonio Memorial ... which has lost 43 in a row on the field (one loss later was forfeited) and, in 1983-89, lost 51 in a row.