Triad’s Andy Martin (26) tries to elude a tackler in this file photo. The Cardinals will host Cedarville on Friday.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Will Channell)
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The Cardinals of Triad are a team that has been struggling so far during the 2017 high school gridiron season.
Going into Week 5, the Cards are still on the hunt for their first win. With this Friday’s opponent Cedarville coming to town, the Cardinals have a chance of putting the first mark in the win column if they can play mistake free football, according to coach Joe Cardinal.
“We need to cut the turnovers and mental mistakes,” he said. “We need to learn how to win. When things start going well, we seem to expect something bad to happen. If each guy does his job and understands situations, we’ll be OK.”
Last year’s Cardinals were only able to scrap together one win and it was against Cedarville. However , Cardinal is not underestimating a team that is currently on a 22-game losing streak.
“We hope to have a good game this week against Cedarville,” said Cardinal. “They are much improved from last year, so we expect a good, close game. We really need to limit turnovers and penalties and control the ball.”
Triad will have to battle without one of its premier talents, Dylan Rice. Rice suffered a knee injury during Week 2 and has been out ever since. Cardinal realizes the hole that was left behind with Rice’s absence, but says there is talent elsewhere on the field.
“Dylan is our vocal leader and losing him has been tough,” said Cardinal. “We have talent at our wide receiver position and we are doing what we can to get them the ball. Jordan Simonelli (quarterback) is doing a good job of getting the ball to different receivers; we just need to limit turnovers.”
In order to get the ball to the Card’s wide-outs, Cardinal knows his squad is going to have to get better on the run.
“We need to establish the run more than we have the past two weeks,” he said. “We do have quality receivers, but we need to force them (Cedarville) to add guys to the box to stop our run, which will allow us to get one-on-one match-ups with our wide-outs.”
To obtain those one-on-one match-ups, Cardinal is looking for Andy Martin to pick up where Rice left off, with some help from Isiah Leasure. The two will have a “very solid defensive line” to contend with and “linebackers who will run to the ball,” said Cardinal.
Both teams have had defensive struggles. Cedarville has given up 217 points, while the Cardinals have had their own defensive woes by giving up 209 points.
Triad’s defense will have to contend with a ‘run-first’ type of program.
“They like to use their tight end to block in the run game and they’ll leak him out in the pass as well,” said Cardinal. “They are usually in two or three-back sets, but we will see a shotgun, one-back set as well. Cedarville is physical up front and they want to establish the run.”
Although both teams have had their struggles, this is a game that can go either way. It depends on who can play the cleanest football and it could be a shoot-out.