In high school, almost all sports have a varsity team and a junior varsity (JV) team. In football, the varsity team plays on Friday night and JV often plays on Monday. The JV team usually consists of underclassmen and a few juniors but never seniors.
The JV football team began their season on Monday, Aug. 28 against Hollidaysburg. As the season progressed, the team struggled to find consistency in games. With their record as 3-3, they are working during practices to become more consistent in their game.
“There’s a few things we could improve on to get better. We’ve had good effort though,” freshman Conner Pike said.
Even though the team pushed through to find wins, they have faced issues with having the whole team on the field for every game. Pike says this has affected the team greatly.
“This affected our game a lot because they were all starters. It was difficult filling their spots,” Pike said.
With the team facing problems off the field, they have also faced problems on the field. Freshman Colson D’Angelo believes they haven’t performed their best in games.
“I think we need to have a better work ethic. Sometimes we look better in practice than we do in games. When it’s practice it’s not as fast paced so we don’t feel as much pressure,” D’Angelo said.
The team is working to improve certain parts of their game. They have been struggling on defense this year, even though it is a vital part of the sport.
“Tackling has been off for us. We miss a lot of tackles. This gives the other team chances to break away big plays because we missed tackles,” Pike said.
D’Angleo agrees that defense has been holding them back this season.
“Including me, the O line needs to do better. We need to be consistent with all of our plays,” D’Angelo said.
Although the team is a close group, they are still hard on each other. Sometimes this leads to arguments on the field.
“We don’t argue a lot but when someone messes up on the field we all just kind of yell. It’s not like we are actually mad at them, we just want to help them carry their weight and fix their mistakes,” D’Angelo said.
Even though there are certain parts of the game that need improvement, the players stick together as a team.
“I would say we are a pretty close group. We were all friends before football so I think it makes the team chemistry better,” freshman Cody Chathams said.
