By Adam Robinson
sports editor

With summer now behind them and the start of the 2014 football season getting closer, W.S. Neal head football coach Doug Hoehn and his Eagles are quickly gearing up for their season opener.
“The first week of practice, for it to be the first week, I think things went well,” Hoehn said of last week’s first official days of practice. “We missed one day due to the weather, but the times we have been out there, I think the practices have been extremely focused.”
Hoehn said with the season starting a week earlier than normal this season, his team has to prepare quickly.
“We are used to (August) 22 being a preseason game, but it is not this year and that puts us under a little bit more pressure because we are not going to have the practice run-in and the preseason game before the real one this year,” he said. “That forces us to start preparing for our first team opponent earlier than we usually do. We have had to revamp the schedule a little bit and juggle things around a little bit. You always want to start out on working on fundamentals and we are doing that. But we are having to speed the schedule up a little bit to prepare for Bishop Snyder.”
As for the summer, Hoehn said he thought it was a very productive summer for his squad. “The kids worked extremely hard and I think we were able to progress at a level…a little higher level and a little quicker pace than we have had in the other summers,” he said. “We came in and worked out three days a week. We had several kids that made good gains in the weight room. I think we have a strong cohesiveness with the team this year. They seem to really work well together.”
W.S. Neal will travel to Jacksonville, Fla., next week for their 2014 opener.