Wilmington opened South Central Ohio League play last week with a resounding 54-7 win over McClain at Alumni Field.
The Hurricane, 3-1 on the year, will face another Highland County squad this week when Matt Hodge and his Hillsboro Indians visit Wilmington for the annual Homecoming game.
The Indians are 1-3, with the lone win a 40-6 triumph over Clermont Northeastern. Hillsboro started its SCOL schedule with a 22-3 loss to Washington last week.
“Hillsboro is a power run team,” said WHS head coach Scott Killen. “They run a 4-4 on defense. Their interior linebackers and defensive linemen are very physical.”
Hillsboro is coached by former East Clinton head coach Matt Hodge.
While Homecoming is time to celebrate coming back, Killen wants his team to enjoy the atmosphere without letting it distract them from the job at hand.
One area the Hurricane needs to clear up is penalties.
“We are still dealing with the penalties being a huge problem,” he said. “We had two touchdowns called back (Friday against McClain) because of holding penalties. We had a roughing the punter penalty that kept a drive alive. We need to focus more on those details and get them corrected.”
With injuries plaguing Wilmington the past few weeks, Killen said he is looking forward to getting back some of those players who have missed action. In the meantime, he is happy to get some of this second- and third-line players reps on Friday nights.
“The past couple of weeks has allowed my staff and I to sit down and fill in holes,” said Killen. “Now with getting most everybody back, we are able to put the best 11 on offense and best 11 on defense with not very many guys going both ways. Playing so many young guys is going to benefit us later on because we had to throw them into the fire and they responded very well.”
Killen said his Hurricane rushed for more than 350 yards on offense against the Tigers, with six different players getting yardage. He believes his team can be better on offense, though.
“We are still trying to get into a groove offensively,” he said.
