Warriors Run Into the Ground

The WHS football team failed to execute on both sides of the ball against the St. Joseph’s Cadets at home on Friday. The Cadets made the Warriors pay by running them into the ground in a 35-6 victory. 

Cadets’ junior running back Tyler Matakevich dominated the Warriors by scoring three touchdowns (two rushing, one receiving) and rushing for over 190 yards.

“Matakevich is a great running back,” said WHS football head coach Bruce Cunningham. “Both he and quarterback Joe Della Vecchia give St. Joseph’s a great one-two punch and tonight, we just could not stop it.”

Cunningham believes that Della Vecchia’s 55-yard quarterback sneak touchdown run in the second quarter to make it a 21-6 game both surprised and deflated his team.

“We actually tried to double-down on defense and we ended up running right by him,” explained Cunningham. “It is just the way the play happened that caught our whole team by surprise and really took any momentum we had out from under us.”

According to Cunningham, the team knew that the Cadets would run the ball as many times as they could. However, the Warriors had trouble picking it up and executing when they needed it most.

“When you get behind like we did, it ends up being tough to call plays and make adjustments when you need to,” said Cunningham. “We changed our blocking schemes but we unfortunately got caught.”

It was 0-0 after the first quarter, but once the second half began, it was all Cadets and they ran all over the Warriors for the rest of the game. The Warriors one bright spot was junior Mike Francia’s 90-yard kick return to cut the lead to 14-6.

“Mike had a good game and picked up a decent amount of rushing yards for us,” said Cunningham. “He made plays for us and can make things happen when we give him the ball in the right situations.”

Other than that one play, the Warriors looked out-of-sync on offense and were stymied both on the rush and in the air. Cunningham, trying not to make excuses or downplay St. Joseph’s great performance, said that the team was not able to execute due to poor practices throughout the week.

“When you do not practice well, you cannot expect to turn in a good performance come game time,” said Cunningham. “We did not have any focus, we were not prepared and we did not execute the way we should have.”

Cunningham noted that this is still a young team and a young season and that it takes time to make adjustments. This upcoming week will certainly be a good test as they prepare for the homecoming game next Friday night against North Haven.

“This week, we need to practice better and get focused, especially since it is homecoming week,” said Cunningham. “It is going to be a challenge but I know that come next Friday night, we will be ready for North Haven.”