The Strathmore High School Spartans football team suffered a loss on Thursday night, losing 38-14 to the George McDougall High School Mustangs in Airdrie.
This loss drops the Spartans to 1-2 on the season, and marks their second defeat in a row after losing to the Cardston Cougars 44-14. While last night's defeat wasn't great, Head Coach Danny Warrack says there are positives from the game that the team can build off of.
"Yeah, I think our tackling improved quite a bit. I actually thought the defense did a fairly decent job for the most part last night. They did a pretty good job in tackling, pass coverage was decent, got good pressure on the quarterback for the most part. They had some good drive where they got them (Mustangs offense) to go two-and-out a few times and they got us the ball back once deep in our own end," Warrack explained.
Normally, having 38 points dropped on you isn't a great look for a defense. But Warrack explained you can't just look at the score and think it's all on the defense, as football is a full team sport, and other aspects of the game can result in a high score that isn't indicative of a poor defensive showing.
"We really struggled with special teams and also on offense there were some bad stretches where things weren't clicking. Our offense struggled. We gave their team a short field I think three times (when we punted), and they also got a kick return for a touchdown, there are 28 pretty easy points right there."
While special teams struggled, Warrack still wanted to give a shoutout to linebacker Colton Buckley, who he said was the team's best player on special teams by far.
"He was playing hard, I really liked his effort whenever he was in there. He's a guy who plays for playing time, and I thought he did a good job making a case for more."
Buckley's effort isn't enough on its own though, so special teams is definitely a focus for Warrack. He also said the offense needs to be better; while they had some good moments against Cardston, he said the offense was either at the same level or regressed.
"We definitely gotta get some work done on pass protection. I thought it got better as the game went on, but at times we did struggle and then I think our running backs got to be better. The O-line did a decent job with the run blocking, they're allowing our running backs to get past that line of scrimmage but anytime they did they just couldn't make that one guy miss."
Warrack added he doesn't expect his running backs to make guys miss on every play, so rather than trying to coach elusiveness, he's hoping to get them moving their feet after initial contact and falling forward for extra yards.
The Spartans will be returning to their home field on Friday 23 to face off against the W.H Croxford Cavaliers! The game starts at 4:00 PM at the Strathmore High School football field.
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Sat, Apr 27, 2:00 PM
