I'm Glad You Asked

Said it before, say it again: little things matter.

In a game that was perhaps even more frustrating than the Hart game, your Wildcats could not manage to secure a victory Friday night, despite some heroic efforts by many of our players.

We did many things right: we intercepted a pass and ran it back about seventy yards to set up a score; we drove the ball on offense and capitalized on field positon; we kicked a field go to go ahead 10-7 late in the game, and we put together a two-minute drill drive with no timeouts to put us in position to score. Our defense allowed one score (the other two came from offensive mistakes, one of which was meaningless late in the game) and forced Canyon to punt several times.

Unfortunately, our opponent was not giving up anything. The few mistakes we made were quite costly: a miscommunication that resulted in a fumble and a Canyon touchdown, a crucial penalty when we were driving to score, and a misjudgement on a coverage all added up to a loss for us.

The final score, 20-10, does not accurately reflect the closeness of the contest: We were down 7-0 early in the game due to a mistake on our part, then spent a while battling back and forth, neither team able to do much, until the interception set up our score. We tied the game, 7-7, then late in the game kicked the field goal to go up 10-7.

As fate would have it, we made another costly error, this time on defense, and allowed the Cowboys to score with roughly 2:00 left to play.

Our two-minute offense went into action (with no timeouts remaining, having used them all on defense to stop the clock) after the kickoff, moving the ball from our 20 to the Canyon 35 in an
impressive, and quick, 45-yard drive. With under 10 seconds in the game, we had put ourselves in position for a miracle: a miracle that did not come true. We were not able to connect into the end zone with 10 seconds left and down 14-10. The interception and subsequent return for touchdown was academic: if we had not caught the ball, the game would have been over no matter what.

There is lots to be proud of in our performance, but I honestly hope our players realize how we cost ourselves the game.

Once again, the final message: little things matter.

Next week: Valencia!

Practice is CANCELLED for Monday, October 22nd.

Players should be prepared to report on Tuesday, October 23rd during 7th period pending air quality/fire status.

For your information, there are several reasons for this cancellation: air quality, disruption of players' transportation and home lives, and the fact that I am unable to leave my home due to road closures and mandatory evacuations. My part of the street has not yet been under mandatory evacuation, but we are literally only a few blocks away, so it may happen at any time.

EDIT: 14:45

We were ordered to evacuate, but stayed where we were to protect the house. Our thoughts are with those of you who are dealing with the Castaic or Stevenson Ranch fires.

EDIT: 21:00

We have been prohibited by CIF from holding practice or meetings tomorrow, October 23rd. We will honor that and instead will practice at 3:00 on Wednesday, October 24th.

Little things matter.

If there was any player on our squad who did not already know this, he is certainly convinced of the truth of it now.

There's no percentage in isolating any single play or event in the game and pointing at it as "the" play or "the" moment. If we, as coaches, could pick and choose which moments we wanted to cancel out of the game, we'd all be undefeated.

The point, though, is that doing the little things right make a difference.

Those of you who saw the game saw a battle between two Foothill League teams that could have gone either way at any time. While we never like to lose, of course, it's quite obvious from our two games and the other games in the league that West Ranch JV Football is a contender. No one would dare say that because we are the new kid on the block we need to go a few years before we're worthy. We proved it against Saugus last week, and even though we lost here to Hart, we proved it again last Friday.

We did not help ourselves with too many turnovers and far too many penalties. We must eliminate those kinds of things and play as close to error-free as we can. The strength of this team has always been its precision and smarts: we need to eliminate the lapse in both we had this game.

Now, we must learn from the Hart loss and come raging back against Canyon. We cannot get into the complexities of who-beat-who and what it means for us: we merely need to improve and come out strong against Canyon.

Next Week: Canyon!

Oh. My. GOODNESS!

Those of you who were at the game will know what I mean by that above quote. This game was a first not only for this team, but for the school itself: it was the FIRST ever Foothill League junior varsity game in the school's history. We knew that Saugus was very happy to introduce us to the league--many of the banners up at the stadium said as much (my favorite Saugus banner, which turned out to be true, was, "We're allergic to kitties." Yes, Saugus, evidently your JV's were).

So to enter the league with a win was very, very big for us.

About the game: as I said to the boys afterward, I would be here for a long time if I listed the individual heroes of the game: Cisneros, Borg, and Kwon all playing hurt; Triple-Threat Brooks deep snapping, punt covering, and intercepting a key Saugus pass; Peterson consistently solid at his end position; Snell, amazing all-purpose running both on offense and on special teams; Choi (Aloo Alualau) refusing to get tired as we went to him over, and over, and over again; offensive line of Lander, Modlin, Pistone, Lee, Boring, Frausto pushing back Saugus when we needed it; Grossman controlling the offense and McGough not only making a clutch catch from Grossman but also running away from defenders and into the end zone.

I am sure I am missing some people--that's what happens when you have a team victory like this.

There is still much to work on: Saugus was heavily defending the run, so we went more to the air than we usually do. Although it paid off when we needed it, we still need to complete passes more often. Also, our tackling (which has never been a problem) suddenly became simply awful. These are areas of growth for us.

Nevertheless, we advance to 5-1, which is a good record, but more importantly, we put the rest of the Foothill League on notice: you ignore West Ranch at your peril.

Next week is a bit of an unusual game for me: we play Hart High School, and as some of you know, I taught there for ten years and was the JV head coach for four years there.

Hart is the only Foothill league team I have never coached against.

The Hart JV's are coached by a good friend of mine.

All of these factors are interesting, to be sure, but what matters most here is that we have a chance to be 2-0 in league and 6-1 overall and prove to the league that this Saugus win was not a fluke.

We've earned the right to be looked at. Now, we must play even better to be talked about.

This game was a milestone for many reasons. First, it marks the most points we have scored this year. Second, it was our first away game.

But most importantly, it was the last game before we enter the Foothill league.

The game itself was sort of a runaway, as you can tell from the score. On offense, we had one drive that did not end in a touchdown, and that was a hurry-up drive to try and get some quick points on the board at the end of the half. Every other time we had the ball on offense, we scored. We were able to run the ball more or less at will, and our pass attack finally managed to get something going. I am happy to report we are not as one-dimensional as were used to be.

Defensively, we held firm, though a series of questionable penalites and just plain weird officiating kept the Lancers alive to score their only points. We know we have a few things to work on for Foothill, but we are solid here.

Special teams continue to dominate (though we did not use punt) as we keep making good things happen in the kicking game.

We were able to play many more players than we ever have and get them some significant playing time. With over sixty players, this is no small feat.

Overall, midway through the season, I am pleased with our performance. We have played well and our players seem to have the enthusiasm and fire they need to compete in this most challenging of leagues. As I told the boys, though...everything moves up a notch in the weeks to come,

Next week: Saugus!