The 7th grade Guthrie football team started the season fast out of the gates with a perfect 4-0 record, but sputtered down the stretch by losing three of their final four games, and ended their season with a 5-3 record.
The 7th grade team fought hard in losses to Deer Creek and Piedmont (losing by a combine 7 points), but bounced back to beat McGuinness in the last regular season game.The final game of the season, on Super Saturday, the Jays dropped a 20-6 decision to Chickasha. Head Coach Jason Rice said his team’s main culprit was the ability not to finish drives.
“They are learning that it takes an entire unit on each and every play to do their job to have success, and that if one player does not carry out their assignment then it can really negatively affect the results of the play,” Rice said.
“They also learned the lesson that they need to be there each and every day at practice to develop team chemistry and to continue to build on what they learned the week before and add to it,” Rice added.
On offense, Guthrie showed signs of being very good, and even in the games that they lost racked up a lot of yards, but according to Rice the Jays had a hard time finishing drives once they got into scoring territory.
“We probably out gained everybody we played but we just had a hard time getting into the end zone towards the end of the year,” Rice said.
The BlueJay defense was really good for a good part of the season, and outside the Deer Creek game, they shut down the other teams offenses. Saturday’s game with Chickasha was really no different.“We stopped them consistently, but we just gave them some big plays, which again goes back to everybody doing their job on each and every play,” Rice said.
“All in all I think it is a group with a lot of potential, that will continue to get better and better as they get older,” Rice concluded.
And the downfall of Guthrie Football begins with this Grade.