Wolverines travel to Pocola Indians tonight
It took a quarter to get going, at least in the mind of Vian football coach Gary Willis, but when his Wolverines got going in their home opener last Friday night against Kiefer at St. John Stadium, they got going.
The Wolverines put up the game’s final 45 points over the final three quarters and kept the Trojans scoreless over that same time frame to leave the den with a 45-14 victory.
“Again in the first quarter, I thought we played like we did in the (Tulsa) Holland Hall scrimmage early on at Sequoyah-Tahlequah (on Aug. 29),” Willis said. “We’ve got a little fire back — it’s good to see. It showed up in the last three quarters, and that’s what we’ve been looking for. It’s what we want to build on. If we’re talking about being a really good team, that (lack of intensity) can’t come into play. We have to keep moving up and not flattening out.”
The veteran coach also believes that intensity has been present this week in practice as the Wolverines (2-0) get ready to hit the road to meet their final non-District 2AII-4 opponent in the Pocola Indians at 7 tonight at Pocola’s John Carter Field.
“It’s been a great week of practice,” Willis said. “It’s probably the best we’ve had with this group in a long time. That carried over and is contagious. Our practices have been great. We’re flying around. It’s been a lot of fun in practice. It’s been good to see a lot of enthusiasm. We feel like we took a step in the right direction.”
The Indians (2-0) also enter tonight’s game unblemished after a 54-28 win over Antlers on Aug. 30 and a 44-21 road win over local rival Spiro — whom the Wolverines will open district play against next week. Willis said the Wolverines will need to get prepped for an all-out aerial assault.
“They like to throw the ball all over,” he said. “They throw the majority of the time. They have some good receivers who can go get it. The quarterback does a good job of getting the ball out there. That’s the biggest concern with them.”
The main objective from the Vian defense’s perspective is to try to bother and rush Pocola’s quarterback.
“The first thing is getting pressure on the quarterback,” Willis said. “We have to do a good job in coverage, but they have some skill guys that you don’t want your defensive backs to have to cover for a long time — that’s hard to do at any level of football, especially high school football. We need to get pressure up front. It starts up front. We need to worry about the run game also, but the priority is to get pressure on their quarterback.”
Willis said the Wolverines will enter tonight’s game healthy.
• • • TO GET THERE — Take Interstate 40 east to Sallisaw. Take U.S. 59 south to Oklahoma State Highway 9. Take Highway 9 east to Pocola, where it becomes Folsom Boulevard. Continue to Pocola Boulevard (Oklahoma State Highway 112, signal light). Take Pocola Boulevard south to Pryor Street (signal light). Turn left to John Carter Field.
