By Jason Avery
News-Times Staff
It was a mix of good and bad for Junction City in their scrimmage against Hamburg Friday night at David Carpenter Stadium.
The Dragons fell 7-0, and while Junction City head coach David Carpenter saw plenty of ups and downs, he said the mistakes can be corrected.
“We did a lot of really good things and we did a lot of really bad things,” Carpenter said. “Offensively, we had a lot of bad things happen to us, but the good thing about that is they’re correctable. That part will all get fixed.
“On the defensive side, we did a lot of really good things, but there were still some bad parts of that. Once again, that’s correctable. Things like angles of pursuit and missing a read, things like that, but with work, that’s all going to work out.
“The kicking game wasn’t live, and we tried a field goal and barely missed it. That’s correctable. We didn’t have to punt but one time, and the punter did a good job of changing the field. He had a great punt.”
Carpenter said blocking was at the root of the problem for the Dragons’ offense.
“With our blocking, we missed a lot of our calls and what we’re supposed to do,” Carpenter said. “That in turn messed up our backfield action because of the things that we missed. The running backs didn’t have a good night, and they’re disappointed in what they did, but when we talked about it after the ballgame, they understood what was going on. All of that is going to work out. It’s just going to take some time.
“When you start a lot of sophomores, you’re going to have mistakes, but they can be corrected. We’re also playing several upperclassmen that didn’t get a lot of playing time last year because of the guys in front of them, so they’re getting used to what they’re doing. All of that was a positive even though it was a bad play. They knew what they did wrong.”
Carpenter spoke to the players after the game and made it a point for his team not to dwell on miscues and focus on the positives.
“I’m in the locker room talking to all of the guys individually, and each one of them said, ‘Man, I did this wrong, this wrong,’” Carpenter said. “They didn’t talk about the right things they did, they were talking about the wrong things that they did, which is good that they realized what they did wrong, but we had to tell them, ‘Hey, this is all correctable guys.’ “That was the good part. They were upset that they lost the ballgame, but they understood what they did and what they need to improve on to make it better. There was a lot of positive in that.”
The Dragons’ defense nearly matched the Lions, but one miscue came back to haunt the Dragons.
“They completed a short pass in the flat, and one of the guys didn’t line up properly,” Carpenter said. “They had a long run, but the good thing about the mess up on the run before the touchdown is that the defensive guys could’ve stopped and let him score, but they hustled and ran down the field and we tackled him on the 2-yard line. They scored on the next play, but the effort and the hustle from a mess up in to a good play. In every game, there’s good and bad, and you try to correct all of that anyhow.”
Although kicks weren’t live on special teams, Sa’Anthanye Williams had the aforementioned punt that changed field position and Cole Hanry had the distance on a 30-yard field goal attempt, but pulled it to the left.
“It was a fourth down. If I had gone for it and gotten it, we might have scored, but I needed to see how our kicker would perform out there,” Carpenter said. “A lot of different things that we were trying to do and see what we can do. I’m not as upset and the coaches are not as upset with the bad stuff as you think we would be because it’s correctable. We’ll go back over it and get it all fixed up. It’s disappointing, but it’s promising with the things we did correctly.”
Carpenter added there were some mix-ups on which players were on the specific special teams units, but they were able to recover.
“In a scrimmage, you want the kicking team to get on and off the field and line up properly and make sure everybody that is supposed to be on it, and we had a couple of miscues there where some guys forgot that they were on this one and not this one, but they realized what they did and got there. That was a positive sign,” Carpenter said. “Some of it was a little slow, but I’ve had guys in the past be on the kicking team for all three years and miss and not get out there on time, so that part of it was OK.”
Carpenter was pleased with the size of the crowd for the game, and he thanked Junction City’s booster club for their work on Friday.
“I want to give a shout out to all of the fans that showed up and were cheering us on,” Carpenter said. “We had a real good crowd of people watching the game, and I want to thank everybody that came out to see the game and watch our young men get out and perform. That was a good thing. I want to throw out props to our booster club. They fed all four teams that played last night.”