As any Seaholm athlete knows, when playing against our crosstown rival, Groves, there is always something extra on the line.
This made Thursday, September 11, an especially triumphant day for Maple sports teams, completing a three-sport sweep over the Falcons.
Starting at 4:00pm on the newly renovated “US Open Blue” tennis courts, the Seaholm tennis team slipped by Groves with a tight 5-4 win over the visiting Falcons.
Moving to the also newly renovated state-of-the art swimming pool, the Seaholm girls swam away from Groves early, leading to a convincing 29-point victory, 107-78.
With the massacre moving to the Seaholm gymnasium, things did not get any better for Groves. Heather Lippert, in her first year coaching the volleyball team, led Seaholm’s girls to a convincing 25-19, 25-21, 25-23 victory over Groves.
Yeah, not a bad day on the Seaholm athletics front, as Groves received beatdowns coming from all angles.
On Friday, September 12, the Seaholm football team lost 16-14 to a Stoney Creek team that they had no business losing to. The game, played in sloppy conditions, went the same way that the rest of the season has gone for the Seaholm gridiron squad, bad.
The Maples have lost their opening three games by a combined score of 83-28, losing by a lopsided average of nineteen points per-game.
Frankly, I blame a lot of this on coaching.
For one, Seaholm is running the wrong type of offense.
Could someone tell me why Seaholm is running most plays out of the shotgun, and implementing a spread offense?
“We have nine new starters on offense this year,” said Fahr “so there is definitely some inexperience.”
My question is this: should an inexperienced offense with a brand new quarterback be running a spread offense and winging the ball around the field like the Indianapolis Colts?
Seaholm Head Coach Chris Fahr needs to focus more on a solid run-game, combined with short screen passes and dump passes to his most effective offensive weapon, senior tight end Mitchell Kessel.
The biggest mystery to me is why Fahr is not utilizing Kessel on every series.
According to Fahr “it is never really one thing, it’s just not that simple, our entire offense needs to work harder in practice."
I don’t buy that.
In each of Seaholm’s games this season, Kessel’s number has been called a handful of times in each game, which is not close to enough.
“I am usually double covered,” says Kessel.
O.K., that’s fair, but regardless, when you have an athlete like Kessel on the field, you have to design plays, that give him a chance to go up against smaller defenders and battle for the football.
There are simply not enough plays being called that get the ball into his hands. The bottom line is this: Coach Fahr needs to look to Kessel until the opposition finds a way to cover him. We’re letting too many teams off the hook.
