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High School Sports

October 9, 2008

V-A ready to get back on track

Comets host Bray-Doyle Friday

Ron Booth

VELMA — VELMA — Week 5 of the football season wasn’t kind to the Velma-Alma Comets.

First, they lost Dustin Sloan for the season with a broken leg, and V-A suffered its second loss in as many weeks with a 27-0 loss to Ringling.

The main concern for the Comets is replacing Sloan in the lineup heading into Friday’s game at Bray-Doyle.

“First of all we need to take care of friday night. We need to regroup and replace Dustin in all of his places,” V-A coach Gothard said. “Peyton Presgrove came in on defense and did a great job for us. We need to get a win under our belts.”

The Donkeys (2-3, 2-2) are coming off of a 31-13 loss to the Healdton Bulldogs. Healdton (1-4, 1-3) got its first win of the season and eclipsed its season scoring total. Coming into the game against B-D, HHS had scored just 26 points, scoring in double digits just once.

As for the Comets (3-2, 2-2), they are looking to snap out of their two-game skid and get ready for the stretch run toward the playoffs. Over the past two weeks, the Comets have mustered just six points while allowing 53.

“If we can get better and place ourselves in third, that is the best we can do unless we get some help,” Gothard said. “We are looking at going in third, and if we do that, we need to get as good as we can over the next five weeks so we can go compete with somebody at their place, a second-place team.”

Gothard said that the Donkeys will be aggresive on offense and defense.

“Defensivley, they are not afraid to bring them all. They are going to get after them. They fly to the football. They look like they have a lot of fun playing. Offensivly, they spread you out, and that tends to give us a little bit of trouble. We need to learn to make plays in space. So, really they pose some really great challenges for us to overcome.”

It may sound odd coming from Gothard, but he said his Comets need to learn to play better defense.

“No. 1 overall is defense,” he said. “We need to get better up front, linebacker play and secondary play. So, we covered just about all you can play. Right now, that is probably our biggest eye sore, because that is how we try to build our team. Right now, we are struggling there. It is nobody’s fault we’re just young at spots, but it is time to grow up.”

On offense, V-A has to get better at not turning the ball over.

“If we continue to turn the ball over it is going to put you on defense, and you can’t play defense all night,” Gothard said.

Bray-Doyle head coach Warren Butler did not return calls.

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