0
0
In a recent game against the Richfield Wildcats, the NS Hawks football team lost 15-14 in a hard-fought bat- tle. The loss against the Wildcats brought the Hawks to a record of 2-4 overall while only 0-1 in the region.
“We were right there in the game and we had a chance to win it,” said Head Coach Rhett Bird. “We’ve definitely been on the other end of success from the last few years, which isn’t a bad thing. Having these early games where we’ve had some of these challenges can defi- nitely be a strength mov- ing late into the season.”
And challenges they have had. With suspend- ed and hurt players, the team has lost a lot of members for some of the games.
“The biggest challenge going from Friday night’s game is being limited to what we can actually do in the game,” Bird said. “For instance, Friday night we were down three or four middle linebackers, so two of our middle linebackers were PJ Cook and Brock Jacobsen. Both of those two’s original positions are not those. PJ plays corner and Brock plays safety. We’re kind of limited on what we can do on the field because we’re trying to teach these kids new positions and assignments.”
Because the team has lost those players, it’s been a hard task to have new players filling those varsity positions during the games.
“I mean, when you lose key players, it definitely affects how everyone else plays,” quarterback Landon Bowles said. “You have these kids filling in positions that they’ve never played before and they’ve never done it before, but that being said, we probably could’ve and should’ve won more games than we have.”
Even though the team is struggling to find wins so far this year, they love having fun and working together.
“One thing we just didn’t have last year is a sense of comradery between the whole team,” Bowles said. “At our football camp, the whole team stayed in one dorm and we’re all hanging out and having fun and having mosh pits and dance parties and we just didn’t see that last year. It just shows that when someone makes a play on the field everyone is happy for them and it’s not a me mentality, but it’s a team mentality.”
But while they are having fun and being positive, they’re still working hard and putting in hours for upcoming games.
“Our number one word this year has been ‘consistency,’” Bird said. “Consistency is such a big factor and we saw it in the Richfield game where sometimes we just aren’t consistent with our assignment and it really puts us in a bad spot. So what we’ve been focusing on in practice and on the field is just consistency.”
Focus and consistency are something the football team will need in some of these upcoming games against Manti and Canyon View.
“I honestly think we have the better team in our region,” Bowles said. “It’s going to be tough, but I know that we can pull off some of these wins. Our team has said we can beat these guys, and I believe we can, but we don’t do the little things and we lose. I think once we learn to do the little things and be consistent, then we can start to win more games and see lots of improvement.”
And with region just around the corner, the football team is looking optimistic for the rest of the season.
“If we can take care of the little things, then I really think that we can do something great with this team and I think we can go far,” Team captain Duncan Hendry said. “We lost a lot of seniors last year, but I believe that we can still go far and definitely win a lot of games, as long as we take it one game at a time. Last year when we played Delta, first round in state, we underestimated them and they stuck it to us and so this year we just need to take one game at a time and we can do great things.”
