After seeing their first loss of the season Friday at Straughn, the W.S. Neal Eagle football (1-1 Eagles and 0-1 in region play) looks to get back in the win column this Friday when they travel to Cottage Hill.
In order to get back in the win column, W.S. Neal head coach Doug Hoehn said his Eagles will have to correct some things that plagued them in the loss Friday.
“We didn’t play well at all in the first half,” Hoehn said. “Three things I think got us in a hole early and that was ourselves because we did not play well, two was the Straughn kids showed up to play and three, was the penalties.”
Hoehn said Straughn “had a little wrinkle on offense” they were doing that his team had not seen on film.
“We only had one game film,” Hoehn said. “Our kids could just not get the adjustment we were showing them on the sideline with the board. We went in at halftime and drew it up for them and they had a little more time to take it in. We challenged them to come out in the second half and play harder and play better assignment football and don’t get frustrated. I think we played much better in the second half. The defense played much better. They made their adjustments and the game went down to the wire. We actually had a chance to win there at the end, but we didn’t. If you look at the game as a whole, Straughn showed up to play, we didn’t play well in the first and there were just way too many penalties for us. With that amount of penalties, it is just extremely tough to win a ballgame.”
As for this week against Cottage Hill, the Warriors come into the game 0-1 overall and to 0-1 in region play.
“In the first game, I think Cottage Hill played well,” Hoehn said. “They lost to a very athletic Southside-Selma team 20-7. We are going to their place and we are coming off a tough loss. We are going to have to pick ourselves up and play football. We are going to have to compete. The Straughn game is over now and we have to regain our confidence and our ability to focus throughout an entire game and not get frustrated and blow assignments and not have penalties. If we do all those things, I think we have a chance.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. in Mobile.