Westside’s football team is back in action this week as they take on Omaha North in their first home game of the season. They are amped up for the game as they are coming off of a win against their rivals Creighton Prep. Junior kicker Tristan Alvano said that the team has some improvements to make in order to prepare for the game Friday night.  

“I think cleaning up some of the special teams and working on some of our kick offs because we had trouble with that this past week,” Alvano said. “We’re continuing to work on our defense which was strong against Prep. We’ve continued to work on our offense but that’s only going to get better over time.”

This isn’t the first time the Warriors have seen Omaha North this year. Earlier in the summer the team competed against the Vikings in a scrimmage. Westside did come out on top but Senior Grant Guyett said that they shouldn’t focus on the summer scrimmage and that they need to focus on the game ahead.

“That could be in the back of our minds, but there’s no wins on your record based off of the summer season, so we have to focus on the task at hand and I don’t think the summer has much to give us.” Guyett said. 

Omaha North didn’t get to have a football season last year due to Covid-19, but the Warriors don’t think that this will affect the game. They know that North wants a shot at the defending state champs and are going to come out playing hard on Friday.

“I really don’t think it’s going to affect the game a whole lot,” senior QB Kolby Brown said. “Whoever stays disciplined and forces as many turnovers and plays sound football they will win so it will be a good game Friday.” 

Assistant Coach Craig Secora expressed his views on practice this past week, following a rather scrappy win in the opener against Creighton Prep. 

“Probably the main improvements that we’re really focusing on are assignments and schemes. Equally important is getting off the ball as fast, physical, powerful, and explosive as possible.”

Secora is also the strength coach for the team, and does a good job of keeping the workload safe during the workouts to avoid injuries during the season. 

“We try to prepare the players physically for the demands of the sport. I don’t beat them up in the weightroom every single day, because it’s not offseason training. But we’re trying to maintain what we have and maybe even get a little stronger without sacrificing our ability to play the sport we’re going to play.”

Guyett knows that North will be pumped up this week, especially after a tough loss last week. 

“I think they’re definitely going to get fired up after a tough loss last week to Lincoln Southeast, and also because they’re getting a shot at the defending state champs.” Guyett said. “We just have to take what we did well last week and continue to do that and what we didn’t do well we just have to make some adjustments.”