By TYLER HENRY
JC Post contributor
After a statement 40-16 win over Herington to start their campaign, the Wakefield Bombers have spent the last five weeks navigating turbulence and will enter the final two weeks of their regular season at 1-5.
While every team suffers injuries throughout the course of a season, that bug has hit Wakefield particularly hard this year, as the Bombers have been without the services of defensive standout and feature back Kyler Deville, quarterback, and DB Kobe Wendt, and LB/FB Kingsley Smith.
While many teams would have thrown in the towel after facing so much adversity, the Bombers remain committed to seeing things from a positive perspective and battling to the bitter end of a long season.
“We’re getting some good reps from our kids in meaningful situations because of these injuries,” Wakefield head coach Chris Freeman said. “Our football fundamentally has not been good but our kids have responded well to a much firmer and more demanding approach in the last few weeks.”
Wakefield's decision to battle has not come without a few bumps in the road, and over the last two weeks, the biggest adjustments in the Bomber locker room have been mental.
“Our effort and attitude started out great but after the second game, that went downhill pretty fast,” Freeman said. “I thought we prepared well throughout the week but we allowed mistakes to compound into others and sometimes we were defeated before a rep even began. This week we’ve had some grown-men conversations about what we need to do moving forward and they’ve responded well to that.”
With so many new players getting to grips with the speed of the Friday night lights, Wakefield has been afforded an opportunity to take an early look at the next generation of Bomber football, which has led to some positive results.
“We’ve gained a lot of knowledge of what it’s like to be on the varsity field for some of our younger guys that wouldn’t be playing there as much otherwise,” Freeman said. “That’s given us more depth and experience beyond what I thought we would have moving forward.”
As far as the football on the field is concerned, the Bombers have gone back to drilling the basics and have focused on winning within individual reps.
“We’re focusing on making sure that our run fits are where they need to be and on making sure we’re not playing tall,” he said. “We also need to be more assignment-sound up front and aggressive and fast-flowing in our secondary.”
With just two weeks left to build some momentum, Wakefield has completely shifted their focus within and will attempt to build some steam brick by brick.
“This week is huge for us but we’ve stopped talking about things in terms of wins and losses,” Freeman said. “We simply have to get better as a football team. We can’t just focus on competing in games as a whole but on winning individual reps. We’re breaking things down play by play to see if everyone is doing their job and evaluating our effort.”
The Bombers will close out their 2022 campaign with a pair of district games taking on Lakeside Downs on the 14th and Beloit-St. Johns on October 21st.