Big early test for Rockies on Friday

PLYMOUTH — It was the end of a long drought Friday but the win over Calumet out of the way Plymouth is ready to move forward.

“The kids deserved it,” said Plymouth coach Adam Handley. “They put a lot of work in over the summer. For everybody it was good.”

After that type of emotional win, the danger is that you become satisfied. The other side of the coin is it can act as a spur to bigger and better things.

“We’ve had a little bit of both (in practice),” said Handley. “There is a little bit lighter shoulders. The feeling of relief was that it was over, but they were here Saturday morning to watch film. The week of practice has been good. “

Heat will be a factor for practice during the week and game time.

“We have the benefit that we don’t have a lot of guys playing on both sides of the ball,” said Handley. “We’ve been hammering hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. We’ve talked about 6 a.m. practice to beat the heat. We’ll plan day by day.”

Beating the heat to get work in during the week is important for Friday facing #15 ranked (4A) Columbia City.

“We had three false starts two of them in the red zone,” said Handley. “We had three turnovers all of them in the red zone, those are things that are in our control. Things we did, not something that the other team did to us. We’ve been hammering that home all week.”

“Special teams too,” he said. “We didn’t even use our punt team last week. It can make or break a drive or a quarter. You get a blocked punt you’re backed up against the wall with a short field. It’s a very important team. We were blessed not to have to use them last week. Columbia City is a different team and we have to have that (punt) team ready to play.”

The Eagles will be ready to play on Friday coming off an 11-2 season and a sectional championship a year ago.

“They’ve won games,” said Handley. “They did graduate 27 seniors and that’s obviously a tough fill. Just from the film that we have he’s got guys stepping up to fill their roles, trying to see where they fit in with their program.”

“They want to run the football and they are good at it,” said Handley. “They are going to give you tight ends, they are going to give you wings, they are going to give you a fullback. It’s got to be a different mindset going to be more physical this week. You are going to get beat up more but we have rotation and I do like that.”

An offense that showed some chinks in the armor will have to be ready for a different team as well.

“They have a four front and that’s good for us because that’s what we saw last week,” said Handley. “We don’t have to learn any new blocking assignments or anything like that but they are more physical and more aggressive than Calumet was.”

“Our run game was great,” he said. “I would assume from the film that they have they will attempt to stop the run so I anticipate more loaded backs, a lot more blitzes a lot more stunts to give us fits up front. All that means is that we have to be better in our passing game.”

“I think that we are going to see more pressure on Exander this week to get him to make those throws,” said Handley. “If we execute that I feel really good about our chances. I think our defense is playing really well. I think they will get beat up a little bit but they are playing well.”