Conference schedule won’t wait on Hoover

Friday, September 22, 2006

Chris Beaven, Canton Repository

NORTH CANTON - Don Hertler Jr. thinks he has a pretty good football team this season at Hoover High School.

Tonight, though, he finds out how the Vikings will deal with adversity when they host Boardman in a 7:30 game. Hoover is coming off its first loss, 29-6, at McKinley, and has a number of players injured.

“We’ll see what we’re made of this week,” Hertler said. “A lot of guys were banged up going into the (McKinley) game, and we definitely didn’t get healthier.”

Hertler said a handful of players are questionable. But regardless of who plays, Hertler wants his team to take a step forward. And that starts by putting together a series of good practices.

When things turned sour for them last week after a strong start at McKinley, Hertler was not surprised. He saw it coming during the week of practice leading up to last Saturday’s loss.

“I thought our practices last week were average at best,” Hertler said. “We were making mental mistakes, and we played the way we practiced. We’ve got to be more consistent in practice so we’re more consistent in games.”

The Vikings were inconsistent in all phases.

“We haven’t really been very consistent on offense all season,” he said. “It’s been sort of hit and miss.”

Against McKinley, a couple costly penalties killed drives. The Vikings also had three turnovers. a punt and PAT blocked, and lost field position in the punting game.

“They were momentum changers,” Hertler said. “The short field hurt us and helped them, and that’s what we’ve been doing all year to other people.”

Hoover, though, did get some good things from its special teams. It executed a couple of fake punts, was solid in coverage and blocked a McKinley PAT.

Defensively, Hoover held McKinley to a respectable 283 (total) yards and 12 first downs. It was just a year ago that McKinley tailback Morgan Williams tied a school record with 335 yards rushing against Hoover.

Williams was held to 73 yards in three quarters before leaving with an injury. His backup, Will Sheeler, did hurt Hoover late in finishing with 115 yards.

Hoover's defense led by OLB Jordan Bucar (21 tackles), DB Matt Wakulchik (11 tackles) and MLB Kevin Dahl (9 tackles) did something no other defense has been able to do against Morgan Williams in his high school career. Hold Williams under 100 rushing yards in a game.

“I thought our defense played well,” Hertler said. “We’ve got to continue to stop the run and make teams throw the football.”

Hertler hopes his team gets healthier, too, but until that happens, “we’re just going to need others to step up.”

“We’ve got to continue to just play. We’ve got to put four good quarters together in all three phases. We need to be more consistent in all three phases.”

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