North Marion football returns dominant defensive core
Team allowed 21 points or less in every regular season game in 2021
FARMINGTON, W.Va (WDTV) - The North Marion Huskies return to the field this season after a playoff run that had them falling just short last season. As the Huskies look forward to this year, the path back to the playoffs starts with trust.
“It’s your buddies, it’s your guys,” said senior linebacker Tyler Curry. “That helps you trust them a bit more on the field. Offensively, on the line, you’ve gotta trust the guy next to you. We’re really working hard on that. That’s something we’ve gotta get down. But defensively, I think our trust is at an all-time high.”
The team returns a ton of talent defensively. It remains a brick wall that, in its worst regular season game last season, only let 21 points go by. Depth is a key part of the preparation for a defense that shuts out opponents.
“We’ve got a lot of returners this year. A lot of experienced guys, especially on our defense on the back end,” said senior linebacker Cody Clevenger. “We’ve got a few good O-linemen that are returning. We’re pretty experienced together.”
For North Marion, many of the holes are filled. However, even for those that aren’t filled, depth is a priority.
“Obviously, the big concern that jumps out onto everyone is quarterback,” said head coach Daran Hays. “We’ve got some good competition. Three guys on the team, and all of them bring something different to the table. When you’ve got guys that play defense like our guys do, it’s always good to have at least two,” he said with a smile.
Despite a handful of losses on both sides of the ball that will surely be felt in 2022, the Huskies look to develop talent to fill the gaps via - as coach calls it - a trial by fire.
“We usually don’t get a lot of guys that are Friday night ready,” said coach Hays. “You usually don’t get guys that are transferring in Friday night ready, so your only option is to develop them through the JV program and through practice. We try to do that and get attrition by putting them into the fire a little bit. Sometimes they aren’t quite ready, but sometimes they surprise you.”
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