|
|
Scelza said Luke Allen, a junior, fractured his hip and Greg Paquette, a sophomore, may need shoulder surgery. Another player was dismissed from the team due to disciplinary problems. In all, there are about 30 kids in the program. Scelza will keep about half of them for the varsity team and the rest will form a JV squad.
"That's how we're going to try to work it anyway," he said, "just to keep the program alive on both levels."
With 11 kids needed on the field, that means pretty much everyone will play both defense and offense. It also leaves almost no margin for the team to absorb any more injuries, not that it could really afford to absorb the ones it had anyway.
Scelza said he's still trying to get more freshmen and sophomores to come out for the team. A few kids did join the team recently but they had never played organized football before. Scelza has assistant coaches working with them separately. They'll continue to do that while periodically bringing the newcomers in with the rest of the players to go over certain things as a team.
"It's not getting any easier," Scelza said. "We have a lot of work. We've got some beefy kids size-wise but we just don't move. We don't explode. We're not very quick. We just have a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball, offense and defense."
Scelza said it takes more work to get the offense up and running than it does the defense, where he's simplified his scheme as much as possible. The players worked on it in a recent scrimmage but Scelza said they still weren't executing as well as he felt they could.
"We've created kind of a monotonous situation," Scelza said, "and you have to go over the same things constantly, constantly before you can add another more in this sport."
For the coach, it continues to be about instilling the basics and getting the team to play aggressively. He'll continue to adapt and keep working with them but now he'll have to do it in the midst of the season. Windsor Locks has it first game Saturday, a home matchup with Ellington/Somers. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.
Scelza scouted his team's opposition during Ellington's final preseason scrimmage against Rockville. He came away impressed.
"They kicked the crap out of Rockville High School," he said. "They just destroyed them... They're going to be a force to open up (the season against)."
Scelza said Ellington has pretty good numbers, around 40 players, and some big kids that move well. Those are two things Windsor Locks lacks right now. Scelza also said Ellington's players looked structured in the way they executed on the field.
"Hopefully Saturday we can put a show on that we're slowly starting to pull it together as a team," Scelza said. "We have a few good players but we just don't have enough of them at this particular time."
He said, "You'd like to get a win but if you don't get the win, you'd like to get off the field looking like you've improved and you've gained some cohesiveness."
