Muskies looking to rebound from loss

It’s not a sprint, but a marathon.
This outlook brought to you by the Muskie varsity (‘A’) team, which has the favourable philosophy embedded into their psyche.
“Something we talk about as a coaching staff is that this is a marathon. Everyone makes the playoffs, so we want to make sure that we finish strong,” offensive co-ordinator Shane Beckett said after Monday’s practice.
“Some teams might come out of the blocks really hard and sprint right off the get go, but they might not have the staying power to last the full duration,” he added.
All eight teams in the ‘AA’ conference of the Winnipeg High School Football League have a berth reserved for them come playoff time, so it isn’t imperative to start well, but it is crucial to end strong.
The Muskies will be looking to rebound from their season-opening 30-0 loss to the Churchill Bulldogs in Winnipeg last Friday when they host the Grant Park Pirates this Friday (Sept. 17).
Kick-off is at 4 p.m. at Muskie Field.
“We knew that they’d be good, but how good? We didn’t know,” said Muskie defensive backs coach Greg Allan, referring to the Bulldogs.
“I was very impressed with the Churchill team. They brought the team there to play and they were certainly prepared in every facet,” he added.
“Actually, they were a pleasure to watch, and that’s something our players saw, too, and a lot of these players said, ‘You know what? We can be there and do that, too’, and that’s a very positive note.
“That’s where the mentality of the marathon versus the sprint comes in,” noted Allan. “We’ll work on a little bit each week and by playoff time, we’ll have the whole package in.”
Going into last Friday’s game, the Bulldogs—one of the better teams in the ‘AA’ conference—had practised 21 times while the black-and-gold had only nine practices.
But while much work is still left to be done, the Muskies expect to be at a much higher level come the end of the season.
“We hope by the time we meet them [Churchill] again sometime down in the playoffs that things will be a lot different,” said Beckett.
“They’re playing the best they’re going to play all year, and we’ve still got to get to 21 practices. So once we get there, we will be as good, if not better than Churchill,” remarked Muskie quarterback Ty Griffith.
Another results from Friday’s loss was that some of the players on the Muskies’ already anemic roster didn’t attend Monday’s practice.
“Well, [the loss] weeded out all of the bandwagon players. Just like what Coach Swing said a couple of times in the paper, people walking across the football field right now are football players,” said Griffith.
“We don’t have any posers on the team anymore,” he added.
“I don’t know what happened today. I don’t know why we were missing nine guys,” said Beckett. “I know why we were missing two guys, but I don’t know where the other seven were.”
The team had just 27 players on the bus to Winnipeg last week and only 18 at Monday’s practice.
“Coach Allan made a great comment during the team meeting we had: ‘Once you start quitting, you can’t stop quitting,’” said Beckett.
“And you looked around the room and there were some guys in there that have been through it all with this team, and they’re still here and ready to go,” he added.
As for their home-opener this Friday, the Muskies will be looking to play better versus Grant Park, who narrowly lost their first game 18-16 to the River East Kodiaks last week.
“We’re 0-1 and they’re 0-1, and they’ll be a good team and we’ll expect a lot out of them, and we’ll be much more prepared for this game than the last,” said Allan.
“I hope to perform better than we have so far this year, and my expectation is that we will,” added Beckett. “You never like to make predictions, but I think you can make a personal goal of getting better each and every week.”