The Commercial-News, Danville, IL

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September 3, 2010

Vikings try to improve

BY CHAD DARE Commercial-News

DANVILLE —  Every high school football coach talks about wanting to see his team’s improvement from the first game to the second game.

After the Danville Vikings beat the Urbana Tigers 60-20 in the Big 12 Conference opener one might think that Danville coach B.J. Luke was hard-pressed to find areas of improvement this week.

Not so.

Even with his Vikings vaulting up to the top spot in the Class 6A rankings, Luke said there was no shortage of things to work on this week in practice as Danville prepares to play the Mattoon Green Wave.

“We are still looking for an identity in the defensive backfield,’’ he said. “We are going to play some different people, searching for those puzzle pieces to come together so that we have a solid team defensive unit.’’

Mattoon’s Shaunesy Carlen had 161 yards passing in last week’s 18-0 win for the Green Wave and Michael Heller, a standout three-sport athlete at Mattoon, had 106 yards receiving on three catches.

“This game will give us a chance to test some kids because (Mattoon) throws the ball well and they have good skilled receivers,’’ Luke said.

One of those players that is getting an opportunity in the defensive backfield this week is senior D’Lando Carter.

“Coach had me in practice all week doing defensive drills,’’ Carter said. “I think I’m ready for it.

“Their wide receivers are pretty good and they have a good quarterback. We are going to have to lock down and play better defensively than we did against Urbana.’’

Improvement isn’t just limited to the defense.

While Danville’s first-team offense scored on 8-of-9 possessions, Luke said he would like to see a little more consistency.

“We never really got into a flow with our running and passing games,’’ he said. “We pretty much stuck to either the run or the pass on a drive. We need to get into a flow where we can do both.’’

Danville senior super-back Justin March believes a team has to get better every week.

“Every game, you have the opportunity to learn something new,’’ he said. “We talked about making a big increase this week and as long as we get better, we should be alright.’’

March knows two things about facing the Green Wave.

“They play physical every year, so we have to get ready for that and I know they are going to play hard,’’ he said. “I think their defense is going to give our offense a challenge.’’

Last week, Mattoon shut out the Decatur Eisenhower 18-0, and the Panthers managed just 100 yards of total offense, according to the Mattoon Journal-Gazette.

“They played real hard and they had great effort,’’ Luke said. “They are pretty skilled on both sides of the ball.

“Last year was one of the first years that we dominated both sides of the line. We hope that we can do that again this year.’’

Tonight’s game is set for a 7 p.m. kickoff and the game can be heard on WDAN-AM 1490.

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