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Hernando Today

Plan A: Hushing The Hurricanes

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By MARTY MILLER

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: September 5, 2008

Updated:

Last year at this same time, Hernando Christian Academy football coach David Raley was getting ready to coach his first game as head football coach in a home game against Shady Hills-Bishop McLaughlin.

The only problem was that game, the school's first home game to be held at an off-campus site, was rained out and never rescheduled.

But tonight, the weather is supposed to cooperate as the Lions open their second season under Raley against the Bishop McLaughlin Hurricanes at 7 p.m. at Ernie Wever Youth Park.

It also marks the Lions' first game in the Sunshine State Athletic Conference as HCA plays this year as an independent and tries to improve on last year's 6-2 record.

New affiliation

With a new conference affiliation, Raley and his club now have some postseason aspirations within their reach. And the run to winning the Southern Division of the SSAC begins tonight with the Hurricanes.

Bishop McLaughlin last year finished with a 1-8 record, but according to Raley, this year's club is improved.

"I went to watch them in their kickoff classic against Ocala-St. John Lutheran and they are a pretty good football team," he said. "This is the best Bishop McLaughlin team I've ever seen. They have about a dozen seniors, they looked more organized, and they have a new stack defense that's going to be tough to deal with. They looked real good."

HCA enters the season minus 16 players off last year's team. The biggest loss was Clay Kessler, the Lions' leading rusher (722 yards), tackler (68), scorer (102 points) and receiver (32 catches), who transferred to Hernando over the summer.

Two items in the Lions favor include senior-led offensive and defensive lines and quarterback David Rotteveel.

Last year, Rotteveel completed 47 percent of his passes for 899 yards and 11 touchdowns in eight games. This year, Raley is hoping for more from the returning All-County selection.

In the trenches

He also has a line that has to play both ways, but is led by seniors Josh Romeo, Josh Westfall, Ethan Whitten, Ben Clark and Kevin Wilcher.
"We have a lot of seniors up front, we just had to replace most of the running backs, everyone except Jeremy Knight," said Raley.
When he was asked to talk about how tough making those replacements was, Raley had a simple answer. "There's the magic question," he said. "It's tough, especially when you have to take offensive linemen and make running backs out of them."
With only 28 players on his roster and many of them having to go both ways, Raley was concerned about his players being able to last an entire game.
"We're a small school without a lot of players," pointed out Raley. "So a lot of them have to go both ways and it's going to be tough. We've been working as hard as we can and it's probably going to be the toughest game of our season."
Unlike the previous year, the Lions are playing as an independent within a conference.
Raley believes having goals for a post-season game will help his club.
"Having something to work toward is definitely going to help us," he said. "But I have to be honest with you, it's an uphill climb for us, it's going to be real hard.
Ernie Wever Youth Park is located on U.S. 98, three miles outside of Brooksville. Turn on Youth Drive and the park is located behind the Florida Highway Patrol Station.

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