MERIDEN — Head coach Alonzo Relaford and his Wilcox/Kaynor Tech football team were busy during their bye week.
They streamlined the playbook, made some positional changes, worked on technique.
They also worked on a little grammar. Football Pronouns 101: Less “me” and more “we.”
“We were starting with a whole bunch of ‘me’s’” Relaford recounted. “That’s what we called them: Me’s. ‘Did you see me block? Did you see me do this?’ We eliminated that. The bye week, if we heard anybody brag, anybody put ‘me’ up there, they were doing pushups.”
All the lessons, from the technical to the philosophical, coalesced as Wilcox/Kaynor returned to action on Saturday and pushed up on Cheney Tech, 27-0, in a CTC matchup at Falcon Field.
The Warcats — no more Wildcats; they go by Warcats now — scored on their first possession, pushed the lead to 14-0 after recovering a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, then punched in two more TDs in the third quarter to improve to 2-1.
All four scores came on the ground. Malik Sanchez-Colon, quarterbacking the Wildcat, scored from 4, 11 and 35 yards. Xavion Saucer, inserted as a fullback, capped it from 8 yards out.
Throughout, the defense forced the Beavers (2-2) to either punt or cough it up. Defensive tackles C.J. Morgan and Markese Wright, backed by inside linebackers Pat LaChance and Jake Williams and the rest of the unit, kept a heavy lid on Cheney’s wing-T.
Along with recovering the fumbled kickoff, Wilcox/Kaynor got an interception by Alex Ortiz and a second fumble recovery.
By and large, that’s business as usual for the ’Cats. They’ve been sound on D.
Saturday’s breakthrough was on offense, where Wilcox/Kaynor had mustered just one score in their first two games, a 7-6 win over O’Brien Tech and a 33-0 loss to Thames River.
Against Cheney, the Warcats successfully moved the ball with multiple sets: Sanchez-Colon running Wildcat behind a tightly bunched unbalanced line and with Logan Stone running I-formation and spread.
Out of the I, Wilcox deployed a number of ballcarriers: LaChance, Andrew Boyle, Sanchez-Colon, Maurice Heard and Saucier.
Working the trenches were center Sergio Mendoza, guards Hunter Budris and Omar Sandoval, and tackles Clay Adkins, Christian Kruger and Gavin Davis.
That’s a lot of “we’s,” which has Relaford feeling good about where his ’Cats are at heading into next Saturday’s game at Falcon Field against Prince Tech.
“We’ve still got a lot to learn, but the guys are getting better every week,” Relaford said. “They’re starting to believe in themselves; they’re starting to believe in what we’re coaching them.”