Loss to Winnetonka doesn’t dampen coach’s confidence

About three weeks ago, the football team had its game against Winnetonka,  13-45 with Winnetonka taking the win.

New head coach Kevin Keeton  had much to say about the game against Winnetonka.

“First, I thought I kids played hard all game.  Winnetonka is a good team and deserved to win, but our kids played very hard.  I liked our ability to execute offensively most of the first half. We were in the right spots on defense most of the game, but we need to step up and gang tackle better.”

Keeton had only positive things to say about the team and its first game.

“For us it’s about daily improvement in all three phases of the game.  We believe that we win with great practices Monday – Thursday, Friday will take care of itself.”

Keeton also said he thinks the players will improve defensively.  He has no doubt.  The players believe in what they’re doing and will fix themselves on defense.

“First half we played to the best of our ability, but we kind of lost our momentum and lost our drive second half,” said senior Marquis Caldwell.

Throughout the last two quarters, Oak Park hadn’t scored any points while Winnetonka started moving up on the scoreboard.

“I don’t think we had ‘the want-to’ second half and got down on ourselves and gave up,” Caldwell said.

At this point in the game it seemed impossible for Oak Park to get back the points to beat Winnetonka.

“I could’ve done better in a lot of aspects like blocking and catching,” Caldwell said.