LODI, TOKAY TO PLAY BAY AREA TEAMS
Tonight is something of an exchange between Lodi and the Bay Area, with Lodi hosting Lincoln High out of San Francisco and Tokay traveling to play Concord High in the East Bay.
It wasn’t planned that way — Lodi was originally scheduled to play Valley High out of Sacramento, but Valley pulled out of the contest.
“Valley canceled on us this weekend,” Lodi coach George Duenas said. “They couldn’t play because of injuries and illnesses.”
So the Flames had to shift gears and prepare for a different kind of team.
“They like to run the ball, kind of old school. I’m excited,” Duenas said. “It’s exciting, because not a lot of teams run double tight and try to get after people.”
Tokay, meanwhile, is sitting at 3-0 and first-year head coach Collin Rhoads is seeing some differences.
“I think there’s more buzz
around school now, around our team now that we’re 3-0, but we’re still coming out of some losing seasons, and we feel like we need to kind of do our jobs to gain some more respect,” Rhoads said. “People aren’t going to give us any, we’re ranked something like 68th in the section, at 3-0. We’re out to prove that we’re for real.”
Concord is 0-1, but a 62-0 loss to Marin Catholic won’t tell anyone much about how good the team is.
“They’ve played one game against a really good team in Marin Catholic. We don’t really know a bunch about them,” Rhoads said. “It’s a good opportunity to focus on ourselves and our assignments — our guys in our jersey, not so much about a familiar face, and take care of our business. We just want to be the best version of ourselves.”
Concord will present a different challenge, Rhoads can tell that much from watching film of the Marin Catholic.
“The ones we’ve faced already have all run a similar defensive scheme. This week they have a 33 stack, which is new to us,” Rhoads said. “West plays a similar defense, so we’ve had a lot of good install, walk-through, teaching periods this week, and getting our offensive line dialed in on their scheme.”
With three games played to Concord’s one, Tokay will be at a disadvantage when it comes to the bumps and bruises of a football season.
“We’re getting a little more banged up now with three games under our belt,” Rhoads said. “But you know, it’s the next man up. We’ll have some guys in some new places, but we’re responding well.”
For Lodi, the switch from Valley to Lincoln of San Francisco marks the third game on the
schedule that has changed. The Week 0 game against Grant was originally postponed to the bye week because of Lodi players COVID symptoms and quarantine, which Grant later backed out of. The Flames’ Week 1 game against McNair was nixed due to bad air quality, and Lodi scheduled a game against Edison the following Monday.
Duenas said the school is close to locking in a replacement for Grant on Sept. 27.
Galt and Liberty Ranch both play at home today, with Liberty Ranch hosting Bear River out of Grass Valley and Galt hosting Linden. The game will be the opener for Bear River, while Linden is 1-2 after a 24-21 victory over Liberty Ranch last week.