Although the Steinbrenner Warriors (1-2) had a 7-0 lead in the first part of the game, the Warrior’s defense just wasn’t enough to stop sophomore Strawberry Crest Charger quarterback, Tristan Hyde and his 3 touchdown passes that led his team to victory.
With each team having more than 6 penalties a piece, extra yardage was just normal style of play in this game.
“Offensively, we’re the kind of team that we literally think that we can’t be moving backwards. Bottom line. We are a possession kind of team, we drive down the field periodically and when we start making negative plays and that leads to negative yards, it’s a bad response.” Said 1st year Warrior Head Coach Andres Perez-Reinaldo.
With the Warriors only having 2 touchdowns throughout the game, one by senior running back Kendall Pearcey and the other by junior running back Jake Carroll, the Warriors just couldn’t get that last inch in the 4th quarter on 4th down inside the charger 20-yard line with 2 minutes and 10 seconds remaining.
When asked how Coach Perez will prepare for the rest of the season and his remaining district games, he expressed that “when we look at it, these are all practice games. The district games are what it’s all about. I have heard coaches say you can go 6-4 and just win those 6 right ones, and just that can get you to the state championship.”
Throughout the night, though it seemed that injuries just kept on coming but perhaps the most important and heart breaking was for the Warriors when senior wide receiver John- Marc-Carrier was seen down on the field after a play. “Marc’s condition is so far unavailable and our doctors are checking him right now.” Said Coach Perez.
Meanwhile on the strawberry crest side, much more was going on.“Well since we won, I think we did pretty well. But right now, we played 2 good quarters and we want to play all 4 quarters. But right there at the very end of the game, our defense really stepped up and the Warriors, well, they’re a really good team. They challenged us there at the end, they challenged us on the ground and they ran the ball great but once again, our defense stepped up.” Said Strawberry Crest Head Coach John Kelly.
But with all this expressed bad, came some good. Coach Kelly gave his thanks to sophomore wide receiver Austin Carswell for really stepping up and catching the first touchdown of the night to put the Chargers on the board.
“We’re a young team and have to work on lots of things, like the huge amount of unnecessary penalty yards and we have to work on the overall potential and the decrease of mental errors and that will eventually lead to a much better football team.” Said Coach Kelly.
In a closing game statement, Warrior Head Coach Perez had to say this about his team. “The season goes on and our players will keep on getting better and better.”
– Evan Abramson