A 35-28 overtime loss to Parkway North for the Oakville Senior High School varsity football team certainly wasn’t the desired result Friday night, but there’s no reason to be alarmed, according to Tigers head coach Arlee Conners.
The Tigers missed some opportunities, Conners told the Call, but continued a very important streak of no turnovers, still with zero this season
“I thought it was a hard-fought game from start to finish,” he said. “We had some opportunities and didn’t capitalize, and they had some opportunities and they did capitalize. They made more plays than we made.”
Over the first two games of the season, the Tigers’ offense has scored 55 points, but on the flip side, Oakville has given up 56, a number that needs to be less, according to Conners.
“I think on defense we just have to make sure our guys are disciplined, you know, doing what they are supposed to do,” he said. “I thought the game before and this game we’ve done something that … is uncharacteristic of (ourselves) and of what we’ve been teaching.
“… They need to understand that what we are teaching is for a reason and go out there and execute it … We’re working on executing it with our guys mainly on defense.”
Penalties were a factor, as well, on both sides of the ball, which is something the Tigers are trying to mitigate.
“Offensively, we had some (penalties) where we didn’t get the snaps out of the shotgun and it really affected some plays,” Conners said.
Aside from the penalties and a couple of missed opportunities, the offense produced, according to the Oakville coach.
“Kyle Hearn stood out again tonight,” Conners said. “We had multiple receivers step up and make plays again. (Arsante) Conners and the Robinson brothers (Cartier and Carvon) all had some strong performances.”
The Tigers will get to test their offense next week when they will face rival Lind-bergh on the road.
Lindbergh is 1-1 on the year and traditionally is a very defense-savvy team. So the Tigers will have there work cut out for them Friday night.
Conners said his Tigers need to focus on discipline and execution to prepare for the Flyers.
“When we call for a play on defense, we need the guys on the defense to be executing those plays that we call,” he said.
“Offensively, I thought we gained a lot of yards again, put some points on the board again, but really we’re just looking at cleaning up.
“Everybody needs to get better and just kind of eliminate any mistakes, any turnovers, any penalties,” Conners said, adding the Tigers had no turnovers for the second consecutive game. “But penalties kind of hurt us, so we just have to get more focused in that area.”
