Testing their mettle: Mikes hope to continue more physical play this season in Week Three against B-C
Rob Burchianti | 无毛视频-Standard
Carmichaels coach Ryan Krull put an emphasis on physicality in the offseason for his football team and so far he’s seen an improvement in that phase of the game by his Mikes.
“I’ll say the first two games our guys have run towards contact more than they did last year,” Krull said. “We’re not going to say we’ve totally resurrected that part of our game from a year ago until we see it every week on a consistent basis. But I am optimistic because our guys have shown the ability to do it the first two games.”
Carmichaels opened the season with a game that was halted late in the third quarter by thunderstorms at Sto-Rox with the score tied at 8-8 in Week One, then rolled to a 50- 20 win over visiting Frazier at Coaches Field last week in non-conference action.
This week the Mikes (1-0) are one of eight local teams who will open conference play in Week Three of the high school football season when they host Beth-Center (0-2) in a Class A Tri-County South game.
The rest of the TCS slate has unbeaten Jefferson-Morgan (3-0) hosting Mapletown (1-2), California (1-2) traveling to Bentworth (2-1) and West Greene (0-3) hosting Avella (1-2).
In Class A Eastern Conference action, Frazier (1-2) goes to Jeannette (3-0), and in a Class AA Century Conference game Waynesburg Central (2-1) is at Washington (2-1).
Eight area teams continue non-conference play with Laurel Highlands (1-1) hosting Indiana (1-2), Uniontown (2-1), looking for program win No. 501, hosting Allderdice (2-1), Connellsville (0-3) hosting Berlin Brothersvalley (2-1), undefeated Southmoreland (3-0) hosting Blackhawk (1-2), Albert Gallatin (2-1) at Northern Garrett, Md., Brownsville (0-1) at Bellaire, Ohio (2-1), Belle Vernon (1-0) at McKeesport (0-3) and Mount Pleasant (2-1) at Ambridge (1-1).
Carmichaels fell to visiting Beth-Center last year, 34-20, in a game that Krull cited as a prime example of what his team was lacking during the 2023 season.
“It was a tight game but, especially in the second half, they just pounded us,” Krull recalled. “From a physicality standpoint they ran it right down our throats. We did not come up and forcefully meet their players. We’ll see if that’s changed on Friday.”
Scoring 50 against the Commodores surprised Krull a bit, but not entirely.
“I knew we had the capability to put up a lot more points than we did at Sto-Rox,” Krull said. “We shot ourselves in the foot several times, which is kind of the way the first game goes. Just miscues in our first true game experience.
“I did think we had other opportunities to score that we failed to take advantage of. We had the ball in their territory on a third and 5 and fumbled the snap. We had some blocking assignment errors where we didn’t do a good job of communicating up front. We got that rectified against Frazier.
“I’m glad that we were able to fix some of that and improve. Any time you score 50 without really completing a pass, it’s saying something.”
The Mikes statistically did have several long plays for touchdowns on shovel passes by Brandon Bupka, including three to Brandon Yekel of 21, 52 and 29 yards, but as Krull pointed out, “We really didn’t throw the ball downfield at all. I know our quarterback’s numbers were statistically good but those were all from basically forward handoffs that go into the books as passes completed. Cannon did a good job running the offense but that’s a tribute to our guys up front blocking and their selflessness to help each other and work for each other.”