This last week was hectic for myself and the Bearcat football team. With our scrimmage against Sanger being on Thursday, we had only three days of practice to prepare ourselves for the fight. The only way we were going to come out on top would be by training extra hard every day and focusing as much as possible on what we had to do.
Monday morning came in what felt like no time and, suddenly, our lives were unfortunately no longer designated only to football anymore. The beginning of school now means that we will need to perform in the classroom without losing any of our drive to get better on the field. Throughout the week, we would receive countless syllabi and social contracts for each of our classes, and then would be back on the field as soon as 8th period rolled around. While this did prove challenging, we did not falter and continued to present positive work ethic in every practice.
Because of our narrowed time frame, the coaches decided to up the ante and throw us straight into game-like drills. At the beginning of practice we did our “Team Takeoff Drill”: 20 plays of fast-paced full contact, with our best offensive team facing our best defensive group. While that is an admittedly exhausting workout, it always motivates us to hit harder, run faster, and to better compete with each other for the rest of practice.
When Thursday finally came we saw how our effort throughout the week translated onto the Sanger field. Our offense performed well, scoring 4 times throughout the night, pushing hard into Indian territory every down we could. Defensively, we shut out Sanger, not allowing their team to cross the pylons even once. Even when they made it into the red zone, we never quit and relentlessly held them off. It was an incredibly encouraging scrimmage, and while our mental mistakes were far from absent, if we devote ourselves to making sure we understand each of our individual responsibilities and maintain our standards for what good effort looks like, we will undoubtedly get better every week, which is the only way to achieve our goals for the year.
Jake Morris #55
