Rockies open NLC run with Northridge

Courtesy of The Pilot News.

PLYMOUTH — A loss in game two wasn’t how the Plymouth Rockies scripted it but it was a night for improv as lightning delays and then unexpected twists of the game were the theme of the night.
“The score doesn’t look a whole lot different (from a loss to Columbia City a year ago) but watching the game you can tell the difference between last year’s game and this year’s game,” said Plymouth head coach Adam Handley. “We had some things that we didn’t execute. Our offensive line struggled a little bit with some of the things they showed us. When we adjusted we had some success.”
“But then we’d take a step back with a bad snap, Finn (Holm) goes down with an injury,” said Handley. “We were doing some good things and we’d have something bad happen and we’d have an uphill battle and we didn’t overcome that at times.”
“The margin of error with the teams we play is small, but we have to get to the point where those errors don’t lead directly to points.”
The final line on yardage was very similar. It was the mistakes that turned instantly into points in the first half that were literally the difference in the game.
“The final stat line I think they had 340 yards and we had 305 so they outgained us by 35 total yards,” said Handley. “We didn’t throw the ball well but we still ran for over 200 yards. As frustrating as it was we had some decent yardage, but then they’d catch us in a twist or in a 50 front and they even walked down to a six front on us once.”
“We have to be able to recognize those things and not just freak out,” he said. “Those are the things that you plan all week and we just didn’t execute.”
This week the Rockies open NLC play with a Northridge team that is also 0-2 with losses to Fort Wayne North on opening night and to Elkhart a week ago.
“They are similar to us,” said Handley. “They have four receivers most of the time and they will spread you out. They are an odd front team on defense and sometimes walk down a backer. Schematically their offense and defense are almost identical to ours.”
A given in the Raider scouting report will be keeping Plymouth quarterback Exzander Ramirez in check. The Rockies’ job is to counteract that.
“We installed some new things last week and we didn’t feel confident doing that on Friday,” said Handley. “If it’s not ready to go by Thursday (game week) it’s not in the plan for that week and we didn’t feel comfortable with that last week. We’ve had another week to work on that and we hope that’s going to give us the opportunity to get him (Ramirez) the ball or maybe get our backs out in space a little more.”
One back that will be out is Finn Holm who suffered an injury a week ago and is at best questionable for this Friday night.
“He’s not officially out yet but we think he will be out this week,” said Handley. “We will evaluate that day by day. Owen (Verhaeghe) being a sophomore came in cold off the bench and did a good job for us. He’s going to get all the varsity reps this week. Kaden (Milliser) has been going off and on and with Finn when we run our two back sets and he will get some reps running the ball this week.”