Eagles’ First Hock Tilt on the Dock

The Sharon High football team is preparing for its first Hockomock League matchup of the 2012 season, versus Taunton on Saturday.

“The pre-season is over,” said Head Coach Dave Morse, whose squad improved to 3-0 with a 34-22 victory over North Quincy in the Eagles’ home opener last Saturday.

“It’s time for the Hock. I’ve never even seen Taunton play, because it’s their first year in the Hock. But we’ve got to prepare right. Our kids have got to believe,” Morse added.

“It’s going to be a big game,” said senior captain Calvin Joseph. “We have a lot of momentum, home-field advantage. Hopefully, it will be a great game. I think we’ve got this team.”

Sharon incurred a slow start to the game last week, and with another 1 pm home kickoff scheduled for Saturday, the Eagles will need to display more intensity starting right after the National Anthem.

“We’ve got to go in with the mindset that we’re going to mess the other team up, basically,” said Joseph. “We have to go and give it everything we’ve got, and more wins are going to follow.”

On what he is looking for against the Tigers, junior Erik Kushner said, “Better overall team defense. Got to come out harder.”

Taunton, a city and the largest school in the league with over 1,900 students, lost their first-ever Hockomock game in Stoughton, 14-0, in Week 2.

The Tigers, which, like recent Hockomock addition Attleboro, were former members of the Old Colony League, come in 1-2 overall, after a 34-20 victory against Durfee last Friday night.

“We’ve never beaten a big school,” said Morse. “We have an opportunity to do that this week. I don’t know what the hurdle is, but we have no excuses. We’ve got to prepare like it’s any other game – know our assignments and do our jobs.”

Last season, the Eagles were trounced at home by Kelly-Rex division foes King Philip, North Attleboro, and Mansfield, and fell in a close late-season battle in Attleboro.

“We’ve gotten a lot better since last year,” said Joseph. “We’re definitely going to compete with them. It’s going to be a good game; we’re going to have to fight hard, because nothing comes easy.”

“We’re doing a lot of things right,” said Morse. “We’ve just got to move forward and build on that.”

About Taunton, Morse said, “They definitely have some speed and they block well on the perimeter. We have to counter that with getting off blocks correctly, tackling in space.”

Senior receiver Bradley Kaufman says that Sharon, which this week made its first-ever appearance in the Boston.com Top 100 teams in Massachusetts, checking in at #62, is playing solidly.

“We’re running the ball well. We’re throwing the ball well, but we’ve got to just stay on our blocks, keep moving the ball from the start of the game to the finish,” said Kaufman.

“We’ve got to prepare,” said Morse. “We’ve got to be more sound. We had a couple of breakdowns early defensively [against No. Quincy].

“We’ve got to stick to our gameplan and not make mistakes on defense early to put us in the position to be in the lead throughout the game, and never be down,” Morse added.

The coach says that having no practice on Wednesday of this past week, due to Yom Kippur, was a changeup to Sharon’s normal game preparation routine, but would be no excuse for a subpar effort on Saturday.

“Good teams will not let that affect them. They’ll actually build upon that to rest their bodies and prepare better,” Morse added.

Morse says that his being named the New England Patriots High School Coach of the Week this past week guarantees that the Tigers will not take the Eagles lightly.

“It gets [opponents]’ eyes open, saying, ‘We’re not going to roll over this Sharon team. They’re obviously doing something right,’” Morse said.

Should the Eagles win over Taunton, Joseph said, “That would give us a lot more momentum than we already have, speaking that we’re going to be 4-0 as of this Saturday. I think our chances our good.”

Morse says that Sharon is more prepared mentally to defeat a large school than in the past. “The kids’ mindsets now are, ‘We can pull this off, and we’re ready to go.’”