Week 5 Football Preview: Indians set to host Blue Lions
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
HILLSBORO — The Hillsboro Indians have reached the halfway point of the regular season as they play in their fourth home game of the season Friday night, hosting the Washington Blue Lions at Richards Memorial Field.
The Indians are 0-4 headed into their second South Central Ohio League game of the regular season, losing last week to the Clinton-Massie Falcons 72-7 to fall to 0-1 in league play.
At this point of the season, Hillsboro head coach Brian Spicer said his team and his staff are realistic in what they can gain from this season.
"We played the best team in the league last week, and we took our lumps," he said. "We wouldn't like to see that many points scored, but the big thing we need to watch out for is being content with those type of results.
"The pain of losing a game is still there for the kids … we need to find things to work on, and we have been working on those things this week in practice."
Washington, on the other hand, is coming off a dominating 42-12 league win over the Madison-Plains Golden Eagles, where they improved to 2-2 overall and 1-0 in the SCOL. Versus the Golden Eagles the Blue Lions totaled 401 yards of offense. In the air, Caleb Huffman passed for 153 yards, going 9-of-14.
The Blue Lions' other victory came against the Circleville Tigers (32-19). Their losses have come to the Logan Elm Braves (41-13) and Adena Warriors (20-13) in Week 1 and Week 3, respectively.
"Washington has a good scheme, good backs that can pound a team," Spicer said. "Then they will use a play action pass against you when you have nine or 10 guys in the box to stop the run.
"Defensively … it is tough to say what we'll see with our style of offense, but they have been using a 7-1 Diamond look, which is a formation you don't see very much. They challenge teams to run the ball. We have to be able to spread them out to get a couple of their guys out of the box."
Last week for the Blue Lions, senior Jerome Pettiford rushed for 166 yards on nine carries. For the season, the senior has rushed for 529 yards in four games. Senior Reily Shaw finished last week with 40 yards rushing (seven carries) and had three receptions for 73 yards. That night, he was also crowned Washington's homecoming king. For the season, Shaw has 268 yards rushing.
In their game last week, the Indians didn't gain many yards offensively, and defensively allowed 21 points in the first quarter, along with 28 more points in the second to trail 49-0 at halftime. The Falcons added 21 more points in the third quarter and two more in the final 12 minutes. In the first half alone, the Falcons totaled over 321 yards of offense against the Indians.
"It will be interesting to see how the kids handle Washington's pressure this week," Spicer said. "All we can do is keep teaching them different parts of the game. We've improved on the game-planning aspect it, and last week we even had our best week of practice.
"The kids are giving everything they have, and we have young kids who want to play hard and are happy to be playing football. I like that effort."
This season is still relatively new to the Indians, who haven't won a game since Week 7 of the 2010 season, but there has been improvement since the first game of the season.
"We are improving on the little things. In the first few games, we had blown assignments, but in mid-season we are watching that disappear. Our kids are understanding we are doing things right … we are running the right routes, hitting the gaps … we are doing all of that now.
"We just need to see consistency … we are still missing that aggressiveness. We are giving up big plays at odd times, like on third-and-8, and we don't dig in like we did on the first two downs. Sometimes it can get a bit frustrating because we are relaxing, or we are tired. The emphasis is to keep that aggression all the time … we have to play all out because this week they have two big guys at running back."
Last season against the Blue Lions, HHS lost 41-12 at Gardner Park. The last win HHS has over the Blue Lions came in the '05 season where HHS won 39-13.
Since the '05 season, HHS has lost to Washington by scores of 41-14 ('06), 49-6 ('07), 7-6 ('08), 28-27 ('09) and 41-12 ('10). In their first two meetings when the league reformed, the Blue Lions won over HHS, 37-18 ('03) and HHS won in '04, 34-13.
The Blue Lions and Indians will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Friday night at Richards Memorial Field.[[In-content Ad]]
The Indians are 0-4 headed into their second South Central Ohio League game of the regular season, losing last week to the Clinton-Massie Falcons 72-7 to fall to 0-1 in league play.
At this point of the season, Hillsboro head coach Brian Spicer said his team and his staff are realistic in what they can gain from this season.
"We played the best team in the league last week, and we took our lumps," he said. "We wouldn't like to see that many points scored, but the big thing we need to watch out for is being content with those type of results.
"The pain of losing a game is still there for the kids … we need to find things to work on, and we have been working on those things this week in practice."
Washington, on the other hand, is coming off a dominating 42-12 league win over the Madison-Plains Golden Eagles, where they improved to 2-2 overall and 1-0 in the SCOL. Versus the Golden Eagles the Blue Lions totaled 401 yards of offense. In the air, Caleb Huffman passed for 153 yards, going 9-of-14.
The Blue Lions' other victory came against the Circleville Tigers (32-19). Their losses have come to the Logan Elm Braves (41-13) and Adena Warriors (20-13) in Week 1 and Week 3, respectively.
"Washington has a good scheme, good backs that can pound a team," Spicer said. "Then they will use a play action pass against you when you have nine or 10 guys in the box to stop the run.
"Defensively … it is tough to say what we'll see with our style of offense, but they have been using a 7-1 Diamond look, which is a formation you don't see very much. They challenge teams to run the ball. We have to be able to spread them out to get a couple of their guys out of the box."
Last week for the Blue Lions, senior Jerome Pettiford rushed for 166 yards on nine carries. For the season, the senior has rushed for 529 yards in four games. Senior Reily Shaw finished last week with 40 yards rushing (seven carries) and had three receptions for 73 yards. That night, he was also crowned Washington's homecoming king. For the season, Shaw has 268 yards rushing.
In their game last week, the Indians didn't gain many yards offensively, and defensively allowed 21 points in the first quarter, along with 28 more points in the second to trail 49-0 at halftime. The Falcons added 21 more points in the third quarter and two more in the final 12 minutes. In the first half alone, the Falcons totaled over 321 yards of offense against the Indians.
"It will be interesting to see how the kids handle Washington's pressure this week," Spicer said. "All we can do is keep teaching them different parts of the game. We've improved on the game-planning aspect it, and last week we even had our best week of practice.
"The kids are giving everything they have, and we have young kids who want to play hard and are happy to be playing football. I like that effort."
This season is still relatively new to the Indians, who haven't won a game since Week 7 of the 2010 season, but there has been improvement since the first game of the season.
"We are improving on the little things. In the first few games, we had blown assignments, but in mid-season we are watching that disappear. Our kids are understanding we are doing things right … we are running the right routes, hitting the gaps … we are doing all of that now.
"We just need to see consistency … we are still missing that aggressiveness. We are giving up big plays at odd times, like on third-and-8, and we don't dig in like we did on the first two downs. Sometimes it can get a bit frustrating because we are relaxing, or we are tired. The emphasis is to keep that aggression all the time … we have to play all out because this week they have two big guys at running back."
Last season against the Blue Lions, HHS lost 41-12 at Gardner Park. The last win HHS has over the Blue Lions came in the '05 season where HHS won 39-13.
Since the '05 season, HHS has lost to Washington by scores of 41-14 ('06), 49-6 ('07), 7-6 ('08), 28-27 ('09) and 41-12 ('10). In their first two meetings when the league reformed, the Blue Lions won over HHS, 37-18 ('03) and HHS won in '04, 34-13.
The Blue Lions and Indians will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Friday night at Richards Memorial Field.[[In-content Ad]]