The Titans’ tune-up last Friday night was an eye-opener for the team. And its realization is they need more players.
The Titans took on George McDougall High School from Airdrie in a preseason exhibition match. With a bench of only 21 players, one of the smallest in Titan history, they took on the Tier 3 school, but in the end despite a great effort, they ran out of steam.
“It was a good game, but ultimately our lacking numbers really played a part in the game,” said head coach Ken Fournier. “We were leading up until the fourth quarter and then guys were just too tired playing two ways the whole game. We had a game plan with our low numbers and we stuck to it. It put us in the position to win, but we just couldn’t hold on.”
The Titans fell 29-22.
Fournier said the score in no way reflects the team’s conditioning or effort on the field.
“That much football is a lot,” he said. “We have as very powerful offense, but with that many guys playing two ways we lost our legs in the fourth quarter.”
The offense was impressive with outstanding performances from Lincoln Linville as well as Aiden Enns, as well as younger players.
“Our young guys did step up. Every one of our rookies that came up from Bantam last year was in a starting position and everyone played at a high level. That is very positive for us.”
He sees room for improvement.
“It is the first game of the season so we expected some mental breakdowns. Defensively our tackling needs to improve, so over the next few week we are going to work on that, getting more support on the run and getting our tackling tightened up, so when we make a mistake it isn’t costing us a 30 yard run.”
He is hopeful that as classes commence this fall, and students return from holidays they may see a boost in their numbers.
Coach Fournier welcomes any players to come out to DVSS field during practice if they are interested, or contact Fournier at coach0440@live.com.
“When you see how we competed when we had that many players,” said Fournier. “Imagine if we had six more athletes.”
