Ben Whitehead
The Duncan Banner
DUNCAN —
Rain pounded the Duncan practice fields Wednesday afternoon, but it didn’t stop the Demons from putting in some work for their next opponent. It also didn’t stop them from having a little bit of fun after a near two-hour practice.
Duncan football players continued preparation for Noble, which visits the Demons at 7:30 p.m. Friday for Duncan’s first home game of 2010.
After practice, players broke down their huddle and sprinted toward a puddle on the northeast end of the practice fields, splashing on the flooded field and sliding into the puddle.
Despite the fun, the Demons are taking a business approach to this week’s game.
“Any time you come off a tough loss, a disappointing loss, like we had in game one, practice is usually a little bit hard,” Duncan head coach Jim Holloway said. “Once we had things going pretty good — we had meetings, looked at film with the players — practice ended up pretty good. I’ve seen a lot worse in the past and I thought really we responded pretty good.”
Holloway said the coaches work day in and day out with the players on schemes and techniques. He said after watching the film from the Guthrie game, the Demons went to work correcting mistakes, especially on defense.
“I think the biggest thing is after we looked at film with our players, they said, ‘Coach, they should have punted the ball the first two series.’ And that’s right,” said Holloway. “After they kinda saw the schemes we had going worked really good, they realized we just really didn’t execute them very good and I think our players were disappointed in their performance. You just gotta rebound from that and you gotta learn from it.”
Noble presents its own challenges to the Demons, as the Bears run an option offense, something Duncan likely won’t see much of the rest of the season.
“They run a flexbone, which is similar to the wishbone, but with two tight slot receivers,” Holloway said. “They’ve got some pretty good athletes ... they’re a little bit young in some places, but at the same time their kids play hard. Anytime you’re dealing with an offense that you’re not going to see the whole year, it’s difficult to prepare for.”
Duncan is teaming up with United Way of Stephens County for the “Live United 2010 Campaign Kick-off Pep Rally,” which will be held at 7:30 tonight in the DHS tennis court parking lot. The football team, cheerleaders, Pom squad, drama club and United Way campaign chairs and volunteers will be on hand for the pep rally.
— Ben Whitehead is the sports editor for The Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 255-5354, Ext. 165, or via e-mail at ben.whitehead@duncanbanner.com.
