Wildcats see opportunity to snap losing streak against Gaylord
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ALPENA -- The halfway point of the high school football season has officially passed. For Alpena High, their time is running out on opportunities to earn its first win of the year and end its lengthy 13-game losing streak.
The Wildcats have that opportunity tonight when they travel to Gaylord to take on the 2-3 Blue Devils.
"For us, we know we have to win this game. We are well aware that our role the rest of the year is to be season-wreckers. Gaylord comes into this game still with a chance at the playoffs, but we can possibly prevent that from happening with a win this week. We want to end that dream for them, making the playoffs this week and spoiling their homecoming," Alpena coach Eric Mitchell said. "There's not a lot of respect that they have for us right now. They picked us for their homecoming because when they looked at the schedule, this was the game they circled like they're going to win. We're going to ruin that."
Both teams are coming off shutout losses as Alpena was the victim of a 40-0 defeat at Traverse City West and Gaylord was blanked by Cadillac 22-0.
Both teams have also struggled to put points on the board this year and despite their 2-3 record, the Blue Devils have failed to muster as many points as the winless Wildcats this season, failing to score 16 or more points in all five games thus far.
Gaylord's most recent win came in a 10-7 Week 4 defeat of Petoskey, a week after the Wildcats fell 35-14 to the Northmen.
The only points that will matter to each side is what the scoreboard reads. The Blue Devils will attempt to get their offense on track against an Alpena defense that has been a sieve this season. It has allowed at least four touchdowns, 28 points or more in each game and given up an average of nearly 40 points per game during a miserable first half of the season.
The Wildcat defense has an opportunity to lower that number against a Gaylord team averaging just over a touchdown per game (7.8 ppg) along with the opportunity to earn a victory in what Mitchell and the Wildcats feel should be a winnable game.
"The big elephant in the room still is these seniors on this team haven't won many games, so for us this week, it's lets go out there and win this one, because we can. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks or says, just go out and win, because we can," Mitchell said.
The last time the two teams met last year, there was no shortage of points as Gaylord eked out a 30-27 win against the Wildcats on their home field.
Tonight, Alpena will look to return the favor and earn its first victory in nearly two years.
Despite last week's lopsided defeat, the Blue Devils defense played well, but special teams was a problem. Gaylord had two miscues on punts that set up the defense with their backs against their own end zone. Both special teams errors led to a pair of Cadillac touchdowns.
Much like the Wildcats, Gaylord has seen plenty of potential scoring drives stall out, including a handful of drives last week.
First-year Gaylord coach DJ Szymoniak has put an emphasis on special teams this week along with the offensive line play.
The focus once again for the Wildcats will once again be attempting to put together four complete quarters of football.
"We know this is a team that isn't expected to put up 30 points. We need to clean up our mistakes from last week in a game that I thought we played well defensively in despite the score. We just hurt ourselves with field position last week so we've spent extra time on special teams this week, because we need to and it's an area that we are aware of that they have had struggles in," Mitchell said. "We have to play fast and physical football. This is a team that is very comparable to us and whoever comes out and plays physical football is going to win and we are men on a mission this week. We are all excited for Friday night."