Bart Tooley Quotations

I am happy with the effort and with the result, but not with the execution. We made more than our share of mistakes. We challenged the guys to come out and play well on the heels of last week's win and they did. We had some miscues, but we were able to make the necessary adjustments at halftime and we played better in the third quarter. That is the good thing about this team, we have a lot of veteran players who can come back to the sideline and tell us what is going on out there so we can make the proper adjustments. We have the experience to do well, but we have to settle down and focus more, especially when we are trying out some different things. It was a good effort.

I give West Canada Valley a lot of credit. They did some things on defense that took us out of what we wanted to do offensively. They came out and played with intensity and by the end of the first quarter we knew we were in a game.

I think this win says last year wasn't a fluke.

We only ran 15 plays offensive plays in the first half and we just didn't get in synch. We were too anxious to get on the ball. We made our adjustments at halftime and we came out we were able to move the ball.

We will definitely know where we stand after Saturday. This will be the test. We're coming off a good game against West Canada. (The Indians) gave us some different looks and made us make some adjustments and the kids responded real well. I expect the same thing will happen this week.

We knew our defense would be a strong point but I don't know if we thought they would play that well. We have so many kids back who have been through so much. They have the experience to recognize what's going on and anticipate the play.

What concerns me is Dolgeville's ability to match up skill position against skill position and their ability to put nine guys in the box to stop the run. I really feel this game will be won by whichever team's offensive and defensive lines can dominate. Last year, that's why we were able to win the game.

Brandon Dunn is a tremendous athlete and their entire team should be proud of the way they played. They played us tough and I give them a lot of credit because we were not able to do some of the things that we wanted to do.

Defensively we're right where we want to be. We've been stopping people right along and we stopped them again tonight.

They run a lot of spread formation and they are quick and shifty, which is similar to how Dolgeville plays. This was a good test and a good game for us because it gave us a chance to get a look at some of the things we'll see against Dolgeville.

They gave us a lot of different looks and spread us out. The no-huddle offense that they opened the game up with did not bother us all that much because we run a little no-huddle offense ourselves, I think it was just more of a case that they were ready to go at the start of the game. They had a good game plan and took advantage of some early mistakes.

They have the ability to throw the ball and they've got a talented corps of receivers. That's a little different than the traditional Dolgeville team. They have speed and quickness and that big-play threat, and they're not a one-man show, either.

It's good to know that when we need to run the ball between the tackles we can. They were putting seven and eight guys in the box, but we still were able to power the ball and we know that, that will always be there for us.

That got Paul into a rhythm. We went back to the backfield they're comfortable with and that helped settle them down.

The turning point was not letting them score again before halftime. It could have been 21-14. Instead, we knew we were getting the ball back (to start the second half) with a 21-7 lead. That was a key.

I'm very pleased. I don't remember when we have come out the first week and looked as sharp as we did today.

This is one you circle on the calendar. And when you know that you're going to be playing them early in the year, you're going to know right away how good you are. Dolgeville's the litmus test. When Dolgeville's on your schedule, people always want to know how you did against Dolgeville.