The Lone Grove Longhorns begin their 2010 season right where they left off in 2009--against the Marlow Outlaws. Lone Grove ended 2009 with a 21-14 district victory over the Outlaws at Longhorn Stadium. This week Lone Grove travels to Marlow to start this year’s schedule with a non-district match-up.
“Marlow will be a challenge for us because they have good speed in their backfield,” Lone Grove coach Kenny Ridley said. “They have an excellent sophomore quarterback, and one of their wide receivers is as good as I’ve seen at the high school level. He is 6-3, 235 pounds, and we will have our hands full keeping him in check.”
“We still have some question marks along our offensive line,” Ridley said. “We’re rebuilding there, and we’ve had a key injury and some sickness with some of our linemen. We’re hoping to put things together quickly up there so we can move the football and keep it out of the hands of their talented offense.”
One area that Ridley is pleased with is the return of his place kicker (Aaron Sinkler) and his punter (Nathan Landeros).
“Our kicking game has come along really well,” Ridley said. “Aaron has been extremely accurate, and Nathan continues to improve his punting. Hopefully we can use their efforts to pick up some special-teams points this season.
“We’ve put a lot of emphasis on conditioning thus far, and the players have responded well,” Ridley said. “We believe we can use that to our advantage. On offense we’ll be looking to execute our plays and handle our assignments properly. And on defense we want to give a strong effort. Marlow runs the “Wing T”, so it will be a challenge for us. We will definitely need to play disciplined football in order to return home with a win.
