A lineman during his playing days, East Clinton head coach Steve Olds was more than happy to see the way his Astros finished off Dayton Christian last week, 34-14.
”There were a lot of good things that came out of last Friday’s game,” said Olds, a second team All-Ohio lineman in 2002. “I thought the offensive line got better, our backs ran hard, and Lukas (Runk) did a good job of running the offense.”
The Astros defense was solid last week as well, limiting the Warriors for most of the night.
“The defense, outside of one big pass play, really shut them down.,” said Olds. “We did have more penalties than I would like to see, but several of those came from our guys playing really hard, which we can live with. It’s the procedural penalties that we have to get cleaned up before the next game.”
East Clinton will look for continued improvement this week against Cedarville. The Astros travel to their former Kenton Trace Conference rival for a 7 p.m. Friday kickoff.
Cedarville opened the season last week with a 28-12 win over Middletown Christian, a club team that didn’t count officially in any OHSAA standings.
“Cedarville looks to be much improved,” said Olds. “Offensively, they are running the spread and like to throw the ball. Their quarterback is a good player. He was 18 for 23 for over 200 yards and three touchdowns last week so we will need to get pressure and try to make him uncomfortable. On defense they were in a 5-2 and we expect to get a similar look from them this week.”
East Clinton defeated Cedarville last season 27-7.
The Astros win over DC last week gets the scarlet and gray off to another good start. Last year, East Clinton was 3-0 then lost six of its last eight. Olds said his team isn’t thinking about anything but the Indians.
“Our guys have short memories,” he said. “They aren’t thinking about what happened last year or about what’s happening next week, so we haven’t had to spend much time talking to them about taking it one game at a time. This is a new year, a new team and they are only focused on what is right in front of them. Which is how we want it.”
