The Wildcat football team remains winless as they head to Michigan Tech, still hopeful for the first win of the season as the season winds down with only four games left.
Last weekend, the Wildcats hosted and lost to Roosevelt 10-16 in overtime. This was the best game for the Wildcats all season. Roosevelt is 1-5 on the season earning their first win of the season over the Wildcats.
“Really proud of the way that we kept points off the board and I think when it comes down to it that’s what you want and you know I think it was we bent a little bit at times but we did not break and I thought our guys really flew around and were really aggressive and we did a lot of good things and it obviously gave us a chance to be right there in the game at the end.” Head Coach Shane Richardson said.
The game was all tied up 10-10 heading into overtime when Roosevelt scored to take home the win.
Junior Kicker Michael Karlen had the first points on the board for the Wildcats, making a 35-yard field goal. Roosevelt was able to make a field goal, tying the game at three all heading into halftime. Both the Wildcats and Rooselvet had fumbles in the game.
The Wildcat touchdown came in the fourth quarter from Quarterback Aiden Hoard, who ran the ball in off the quarterback sneak for the touchdown to tie the game at 10 all heading into overtime.
“I think there’s you know kind of a thought behind uh the option gives you lots of options and it’s it’s an an interesting concept but uh you usually have answers in terms of how people line up to it and play it we’re not always right in terms of reading that and executing that and so, the thought is that if you can be right the majority of the time, you can break some big plays and it’s almost as if you can break some of those big runs you don’t need to necessarily pass the ball as much,” Richardson said. “Now, I think we were waiting for those big plays to pop and we didn’t necessarily have as many as maybe what we wanted to but felt like we were having success and we had answers.”
Throughout the whole game, the Wildcats chose to run the ball majority of the game throwing three times throughout all four quarters. The majority of those runs came from freshman Runningback Jahi Wood who ran for 210 yards out of the total 201 yards ran by the Wildcats.
“ I think we’ve got to continue to get better at reading what the defense is giving us and making sure that we’re accurate in that I think we missed some reads that potentially could have really helped that concept and help break some runs,” Richardson said.
The weekend the Wildcats are back on the road to take on rival Michigan Tech when they will compete for not only their first win of the season but also the Miners Cup. Tech currently sits 4-3 on the season heading into this weekend.
“ They play harder than a lot of teams we play. I know they are going to be up for us it’s a big deal it’s obviously a rival game they put a lot into it against us and we put a lot into it against them too.” Richardson said.
