Ocean City Has Short Week to Prepare for Middle Twp.

Three days or 72 hours.

However the time is measured, the Ocean City High School football team doesn't have much time to prepare for its next game.

Ocean City (0-3) is coming off a 35-6 loss Monday (Sept. 26) after the continuation of a game interrupted on Sept. 23 due by lightning.

The Red Raiders host Middle Township at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 30.

"We have to work hard the rest of this week and go back at it," Ocean City senior Ben Bethea said.

"We will adjust," Ocean City coach Kevin Smith said.

Football teams are always structured, sticking to a daily and weekly routine.

However, the Red Raiders will have to change things up this week.

There is little time to add new plays, and there might be just one day of contact during practice.

"We will watch film, and maybe hit the field to walk through stuff, but nothing physical," said Smith of Tuesday's plan.

"We have to simplify what we are doing and make sure we execute well against Middle Township. We have a short week, so we can't put a lot of new stuff in, but our big issue is just execution. What we will do is get back to fundamentals. We have to work to be fundamentally sound."

The Red Raiders have shown glimpses of what they are capable of this season.

It looked like they were making progress after the first two weeks, but Monday's loss was a step backward.

"We talked about three things: one was executing, we wanted to be more disciplined and we wanted to be more physical," Smith said. "I thought we were more physical, but I thought they executed better and were more disciplined."

The Red Raiders seemed out of sync offensively against the Mustangs, and the defense once again were out of position and couldn't make tackles at first contact.

"That’s a lack of discipline," Smith said. "We tackled poorly, too. That's part of growing up and understanding the game. We play well for part of the game, but there are parts when we just don't play well."