FRANKLIN — Badin coach Nick Yordy said it, and Fenwick coach Fred Cranford mirrored the sentiment.
Heading into Week 6 of the high school football season, both agreed there’s no more room for excuses.
“You can throw the inexperience out the window right now,” Yordy said. “We’re five weeks in. We’re halfway through the season. In regard to that, I think we have started to develop a little bit — started to get better in some areas.”
“We’re five games in. Those five games are good and gone and past us,” Cranford chimed in. “We look at it now as if we’ve got one game that we can control, and that’s Friday night. We’re getting into league play, and that’s exciting because right now, it’s anybody’s to take.”
Fenwick hosts Badin on Friday night at Yeager Field to open Greater Catholic League Coed play. The Falcons are celebrating homecoming this weekend.
The Rams (3-2) have won three in a row after starting the season with two losses. Badin has won the last four meetings against Fenwick.
“We’ve just got to keep the momentum,” Yordy said. “Obviously, with the two big games (Hamilton and St. Francis DeSales) there at the beginning of the season, we were in both of them. We just had to right the ship there a little bit to get some things rolling. We’ve gotten it done.
“It’s week by week of continuing to try to get better. It’s a different year. It’s a different group of kids, and we’re still focusing on the little things now — really simplifying things and just trying to get better in every aspect.”
The Falcons (2-3), who are in their first season under Cranford’s second stint as head coach, fell to Mount Healthy 35-10 at home last week.
“We’re a much older, more mature football team,” said Cranford, Fenwick’s coach from 2006 to 2012. “We’re in a better place, but we’re trying to stay healthy, too. Because it’s just a meat grinder in the GCL.”
Badin’s offense is beginning to come around. There were question marks entering the season because the Rams were only returning junior running back Lem Grayson from last year’s starters.
It’s been a mixture of senior Garrett Konesky and junior Colt Emerson at the quarterback position for Badin, which had its best offensive performance in a 38-0 victory over Hughes last week.
“It’s all about running the plays and having confidence with it,” Yordy said. “Now we’re starting to do some things and understand why we’re running certain plays and why we’re calling them in certain situations. You sort of take that for granted sometimes because you just expect kids to know those things. We’ve kind of slowed everything down here a little bit, and the kids are starting to respond.”
Grayson has been productive the last two weeks, rushing for 154 yards and two touchdowns in a 21-14 win over Bishop Ready and 134 yards and two more scores against Hughes.
“He’s our offensive leader,” Yordy said of Grayson. “All of our captains are on the defensive side of the ball for the most part. He’s kind of embraced that role a little bit. He’s the one guy that everybody kind of looks to. He’s responded fairly well to that.”
Badin junior linebacker Trent Owens leads the team with 50 tackles, while senior defensive linemen Roscoe Martin and Royce Rachel have a combined 8.5 sacks and senior defensive back Xander Arnold is tied atop the GCL Coed with three interceptions.
“They’re just extremely well-coached,” Cranford said of Badin. “I think the way they do things, and the energy and the effort they bring, it just makes it painful for anybody on any given Friday regardless of the roster. It’s just the way they do things. It’s the culture, so you just have to go in very mindful this week that you have to be on your best practice week because we have to match the tempo. We have to match physicality.”
Most of Fenwick’s offense is done on the ground, led by seniors Adam Rucker and Connor Schmuelling and junior Jackson Kauffman.
Sophomore Micah O’Connor has continued to establish his role as the Falcons starting quarterback.
“It just boils down to execution within the 48 minutes on a Friday night,” Cranford said. “I can tell you from an excitement standpoint that we’re moving forward and optimistic because they’re flying around and getting after it.”
Fenwick junior linebackers Patrick Keefer and Kelby Shaffer are the team’s leading tacklers.
“We’re still grinding every day, and there’s still a lot of things to be fixed,” Cranford said. “But I’ve been telling them that enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. Our kids are having fun and have a lot of energy.
“We talk a lot about our culture and the core values that are going to get us where we need to go. That’s what we’ve been talking about since summer. So, just to be able to talk that kind of language with these kids, I think that’s what’s most important. These kids are caring. They really do care because they’re out there working hard.”
