Junction City focuses on offense
Junction City worked on offense in their return to the practice field on Monday.
“Coach (Justin) Thompson ran the offense, did some individual drills and we worked in some conditioning,” said Junction City assistant coach Kendall Hutcheson.
“I thought practice went pretty well. I thought the intensity was pretty good. The players were excited to be back out there, as the coaches were also. We were pretty pleased with the way we worked.”
The Dragons hadn't practiced since Aug. 5 due to two members of the athletic department testing positive for the coronavirus.
Hutcheson said the Dragons practiced without shoulder pads on Monday, but they would be on for their Tuesday afternoon workout.
“We just got out and worked on getting in some of the stuff we missed in Week 1, getting back to the heat a little bit, going up and down again,” Hutcheson said. “We'll go shoulder pads for the first time today (Tuesday). We'll try to work that in there and be a little more physical.
“The good thing about it is when you have a team with some players that are coming back, you know what you're going to get as far as the physicality of it. We don't have many kids where you have to wonder that. We know what we've got as far as kids that will hit, be physical and all that good stuff.”
Hutcheson said the Dragons will do some hitting, but that Tuesday's practice would be more about fundamentals.
“We'll hit a little bit, but we're mainly just getting used to shoulder pads and getting into it,” Hutcheson said. “Usually, Day One in pads, we focus more on technique. We'll hit, stand up, wrap up type of deal and go from there.”
The Dragons open the season on Aug. 28 when they host Harmony Grove, and Hutcheson said he was concerned about trying to catch up after missing those practices.
“You always worry,” Hutcheson said. “When you lose a week and a half of practice, it's tough to make up for that. I think the thing when you lose a week and a half like this is conditioning. It's tough to make up for it.
“You can't cram enough conditioning in to make up for a week and a half of lost work. You try to make practice go as fast as you can and try to hammer the speed in practice and go from there.”
Hutcheson added that the team will start working on the Hornets while also continuing to focus on themselves.
“We'll start working this week,” Hutcheson said, adding that Tuesday's practice focused on defense. “We'll start introducing some things, just looking at Harmony Grove's offense a little bit this week.
“Of course when we go through our offense, we'll look at what we think we're going to see on defense from them. Then we'll start working on how we're blocking them. We'll start working that in this week, but we will focus on us, especially when we're working on offense. Yes, we're looking at where we need to block, but we're doing stuff fast and improving us. It's a little of both.”