“What are the players doing to prepare for this heated match?” was a common question going around the school as the day of the game got closer and the results speak for themselves.
Kenwood has been one of Taft’s toughest opponents for years which puts a lot of pressure on Taft’s football team to perform their very best in order to not repeat their unfortunate history. With that being said the players were preparing for a game that could’ve either broken the cycle of bad luck with Kenwood or continued it.
The Taft Boys Varsity Football Coach Zach Elder shared that the team has been focusing on “Cleaning up issues” they had in previous games which include different pass concepts in order to try to spread out Kenwood’s team as well as new running schemes that the coach believes would be effective against the Kenwood Defensive run.
Before the game, Elder shared that he had high hopes going into the game although he described Kenwood as being a “Thorn in our side” because of the results of the games over the years but he said in order to be one of the best teams in the public league the team had to be able to produce a good play.
Kenwood started off their season with two losses but, leading up to the Taft vs. Kenwood game, they have been on a winning streak. Taft Varsity Running Back Stephan Carrera, junior, said, “Kenwood has a lot of D1 players and prospects,” anticipating a challenging game.
Elder shared that his expectations for the team were to “Go out there and compete” in order to ultimately come out with a win as well as gain experience to try and get better and take it step by step.
Taft fought as hard as they could but with a large number of players being injured and a difficult opponent, the game ended with Taft’s unfortunate 21-40 loss. Carrera said, “We probably would have won if our injured players were healthy.”
