They did something new at Richlands a week and a half ago—practice football after a loss.
The Blue Tornadoes’ 18-13 defeat against Graham Sept. 21 was stunning, because the G-Men didn’t appear to match up that well with them on paper, yet inevitable because Richlands had played without much passion at times in the season’s first half.
So coach Greg Mance, after watching films and racking his brain to discern the problem, put his team through a test while they eyeballed the tape.
“I told them if they saw a play when they saw a teammate helping each other up or playing with emotion to raise their hand,” he said Tuesday night. “Out of [123] plays, they raised their hand four times.
“That told me they were going through the motions, playing without emotion. We challenged them to pick it up, have fun again.”
Mance also made some position changes, moving receiver Romulo Fajardo to running back and sending the season’s leading rusher, Kheven Schweingruber, to wide receiver.
In Friday night’s all-too-predictable 49-14 rout of winless Tazewell, Fajardo rushed for 93 yards, which doesn’t sound like a big deal until one realizes it’s the second-highest total for a Blues RB this season.
“Romulo’s 180 pounds and he’s been through the battles for three years now,” Mance said. “Kheven’s 140 pounds and he was getting beat up. We just wanted to find a way to get all our good athletes on the field at once.”
Fajardo perhaps becomes the team’s key player in the second half and the playoffs. If he can keep averaging 93 yards per game, it will force defenses to respect the run enough and permit improving QB Joel Elswick more opportunities to use athletes like Austin Fuller, Ben Addison, Matt Davis and Schweingruber in one-on-one matchups.
That’s how the offense was so powerful last year. Caleb Jennings’ presence at running back made defenses play seven men in the box, gIving the likes of Fuller and C.J. Arms one-on-ones which QB Justin McCracken exploited adroitly.
With a trip to Marion on the horizon for Friday night, Mance feels his team is back on the beam. What’s more, one gets a sense the loss may have lifted a huge burden off this team’s back.
“Sometimes, you can get complacent in what you’re doing,” Mance said. “Kids can take things for granted. Since the loss, they’ve practiced hard and they played extremely well at Tazewell.”