It’s a short-term trend, but a trend nonetheless.
The series between East Clinton and Fayetteville-Perry has a pattern. East Clinton has won the last three times the game was played in an odd-numbered year — 32-22 in 2017, 20-15 in 2019 and 35-27 in 2021.
Upon last check, 2023 was an odd-numbered year.
Take that for what it’s worth.
“Our only focus this week is to execute better and end the night at 2-1,” East Clinton football coach Steve Olds said.
The Rockets and Astros meet in a battle in space, if you will, 7 p.m. Friday night at the East Clinton High School football field.
East Clinton opened with a 12-0 win against Huntington then ran into a buzzsaw last week in the form of Cedarville and lost 35-0.
Fayetteville opened its season with a 49-6 loss to Cedarville then lost to Clark Montessori 44-14 last week.
“Fayetteville has some size, they always do,” Olds said. “The QB is a good football player and they want the ball in his hands as much as possible. We expect them to try and run the ball and take shots in the passing game.
“Defensively it looks like they are running an odd front, which we have seen a lot of to start the season. Like every other week, we will need to execute the game plan, take care of the football, and play fearless football in order to come away with the win.”
Olds admitted those ideals did not happen in last week’s loss to the Indians. It wasn’t a total loss, though. The players and coaches were able to gain from it. As one coach said, “You’re either winning or learning” and Olds said his team was able to do that in the aftermath of the defeat.
“There wasn’t much good to draw from the Cedarville game,” he said. “We just didn’t execute well and we turned the ball over. Can’t beat anyone like that. It did lead to some honest conversations and I believe we will learn from it, but the bottom line is that we have to better. We will be better.”
These two teams did not meet last season because Fayetteville had a numbers issue and discontinued its season. This is a SBAAC National Division game as the Rockets are league members for football only.
