Coyotes Move To New League, Are 1-1 On New Season (09/05/15)

A new era has begun for the Forest/North Clarion Coyotes youth football team, as they have moved to another league.

(Photos provided by F/NC) Coyotes offense lined up against Oil City - Light Blue defense

(Photos provided by F/NC)
Coyotes offense lined up against Oil City – Light Blue defense

The team was a member of the massive ABC Youth Football League, which has teams in six counties, for the past few seasons. There were 15 other teams, in addition to the Coyotes, in the ABC, including several others from around Clarion County. (The Clarion-Limestone Little Lions, which Clarion Sports Zone covers, are in the ABC.) 

Beginning this season, they are a member of the Oil City Cochranton Football League (OCFL). In addition to the F/NC, the OCFL has two Oil City teams (Light Blue and Dark Blue), one team from Concranton, two Franklin teams (Gold and Orange) and one team from Cranberry. With the inclusion of the Coyotes, the league now has teams with players from Venango, Crawford, Clarion and Forest Counties.

Coyotes' huddle with coaches

Coyotes’ huddle with coaches

The OCFL has triple-headers, each week, with all the participating teams playing at one site, rotating from team to team. The games are held on Saturday’s, with scheduled start times at 9:00AM, 10:30AM and at Noon.

The season opened on Saturday, August 29th, at the Coyotes’ home field, behind North Clarion High School, with F/NC facing Oil City – Dark Blue.Today’s games were at Cranberry, with F/NC facing Oil City – Light Blue. F/NC is currently 1-1, after the first two weeks’ action. Coyotes’ coach Wally McClung shares a recaps of those games:

AUGUST 29TH GAME

As for last week’s game, we lost by a score of 20-0, losing to the reigning champions.  Personally, I don’t think the score represents the great job our kids did.  The scoring breakdown was an outstanding run by #44 on the Oil City-Dark Blue team in the first quarter.  (That kid’s a great athlete.)  Following that touchdown, our defense tightened up tremendously.  In the 2nd quarter, Oil City-Dark Blue scored on an interception returned for a touchdown (screen play that was read perfectly).  Then, with about a minute left in the game, Oil City-Dark Blue scored their final touchdown of the game.  Now, we hope for a chance to redeem ourselves in the playoffs against that same team.  And, as you know, the only way for that to happen is to focus on one game at a time and make it into those playoffs.

Coyotes set for another offensive play

Coyotes set for another offensive play

SEPTEMBER 4TH GAME

As for our game today, we won by a score of 14-0.  Michael Schmader had a long 65 yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and Dawson Hotchkiss ran the ball in on a QB keeper from about 5 yards out in the 4th quarter.  Both have got great speed, and had 10 other guys doing a great job blocking for them on those touchdowns.  Defensively, the score of 14-0 speaks for itself.  Following last week’s loss, we modified our offensive and defensive playbooks slightly, which I believe made a big difference today.  Hopefully, that will continue into next week’s game, as well.

The rest of the dates and locations are as follows (with F/NC’s game time and opponents in parentheses):

September 12th – at Oil City (10:30 – Franklin – Gold)

September 19th – at Franklin (9:00 – Cranberry)

September 26th – at Franklin (F/NC has a bye)

October 3rd – at Cochranton (9:00 – Cochranton)

October 10th – at Cranberry (9:00 – Franklin – Orange)

October 17th – Playoffs at Cochranton (9:00 – #1 Seed vs #4 Seed / 10:30 – #2 Seed vs #3 Seed)

October 24th – Championship at Oil City (6:00 PM – winners of playoffs face each other)