Tough one

Tough loss today for 6th grade orange as we fell to Brookfield Central 27-0.

We began the game shorthanded as a few players had family commitments, and after the first quarter we had a lot of injuries to a handful of players. We struggled to have all of the rotations fill in the positions properly, and Brookfield Central jumped all over the opportunity. After a first quarter that was essentially a stalemate, the score got away from us before we finally seemed to get it together in the 4th quarter.

The number of missing and injured players today made it difficult for the players to keep track of who was supposed to be in and who wasn't in certain situations. As head coach, this is my responsibility, and I didn't do a good enough job of preparing the players for these possibilities. I'll have to do a better job this week in practice.

In a way, though, this was a good experience for the team to go through. A lot of players got to be in situations that they were not used to, and the coaches got an opportunity to see players play in different groups and at different positions due to the injuries. We saw a lot of good things from players who took advantage of these extra opportunities, and that was refreshing to see. There's no experience like game experience, and I liked what I saw from a lot of players.

Some of the things we did well today included not jumping on our snap count (for the second game in a row, our opponent had more penalties than we did), securing the center/qb exchange without a fumble, making solid tackles at the end (after missing too many tackles in the first half), and securing the outside. Based on past experience against Brookfield Central, our plan was to control the outside defensively, and we did a good job of that for the most part. Brookfield Central has a solid program and they deserve credit for taking advantage of the situations they were presented with.

The message to the players after the game was to put this game behind us, and to get back to work on Monday to get better. We have West Bend East next week, and we can't waste any time worrying about this one. As we told the players after the first game, we have to act like our record is 0-0 and go out and get the job done.

Back to work on Monday to get things fixed. Can't wait for our home opener at Town Hall. We'll see you Monday.