The Ascension Episcopal Blue Gators are in the midst of a solid season. They have a 5-3 record with impressive wins over the likes of Catholic-New Iberia, Patterson, and more.
However, Coach Stephen Hearen knows that it is important to play your best football at the end of the season, right when the playoffs arrive.
He caught up with us and is the subject of today’s Prep Profile Q&A.
(11) Coach Hearen talked about the Blue Gators! #shorts #highschoolfootball – YouTube
QUESTION: Let’s go back a little bit to the offseason. Coming into a new year, what were the goals? What was the identity of this team coming in?
ANSWER: I knew one thing we’d have to do with a young team was get guys acclimated to playing on Friday nights. We had about 12 sophomores that we knew were going to play a lot of time for us this year. So we knew there was going to be the possibility of of some growing pains, some guys getting used to new spots and not only guys that hadn’t really played on Friday nights before, but also guys that played in different positions last year having to get used to new spots. Connor Edmond, our starting quarterback was a receiver for us last year, and the year before he was one of our starting cornerbacks, so he wasn’t new to starting but he was definitely, you know new as “the guy.”
Q: In non-district you guys played some heavy hitters like Vermilion Catholic, a team that was in the Dome last year, Breaux Bridge which is up a couple classifications. Was that intentional and did that kind of prepare you guys for the district portion?
A: So we have a small smaller district, a six-team district which means you’ve got five district games, five non-district games and scheduling is not always the easiest thing to do. It’s hard sometimes to find three games let alone five games, so when you’ve got to fill five weeks, you end up having to match up with Breaux Bridge or Patterson it seems. So you want your non-district schedule to prepare you, but you also want your non-district schedule to make sure you can get to district healthy.
Last year we didn’t really do a good job (staying healthy), ran into some injuries. It felt like it was every week we were losing one, two, or three guys. So by the time we got in the district we were nicked up and it took us a little while to get everybody back on the field. Once we did that we played pretty good football. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily intentional but when you have to fill that many weeks of non-district, sometimes you’re going to have to go up a couple classifications to do it.
Q: How would you assess where you are? Being 5-3, with a tough setback last week but a nice start to district beating Catholic New Iberia. So where are you with where you’ve been and where you what’s ahead from here?
A: I’m pretty pleased overall with where we are. We didn’t play well last week and Loreauville had a lot to do with that. They came out, they set the tone and kind of sustained it for the duration of the game. I never really felt like we were in the game last week. But outside of last week and Breaux Bridge beating us physically. I feel very good about how we played and how we competed. We played with a lot of energy on defense during the season. Offensively, before last week I felt like we played pretty close to mistake free football and the few mistakes we’ve made we were able to overcome them. So as far as everything going into the season and as many guys as we have that we’re going to have to come in and play in a new spot. I’m very pleased with what we’ve done so far but definitely not satisfied.
Q: With a couple of games left here as you head towards the end of the regular season, what do you feel like the team has to do it in order to be playing their best football at the end of the year?
A: Offensively, just playing with consistency. Coming out and being able to execute and like I said, we’ve done that for a while. A lot of games we came out, we’ve had like three games this season where we’ve come out and had an opening scoring drive where we had the ball for over 6 minutes. We opened against Catholic New Iberia with an eight-minute drive and that is a great start to a game. So just getting back to being consistent and being confident with what we’re doing. Defensively, we’re going to have to play with lot of energy. We don’t necessarily have a lot of size. So for us to be good defensively, we have got to play with energy and you know we’re going to have to be able to force some turnovers which up until last week I thought we did a pretty good job of. We just couldn’t capitalize on any mistakes that Loreauville had. They put the ball on the ground a couple of times and I think they were able to get them all back. So just down the stretch, you know playing with energy defensively and just being consistent and staying confident and making sure we keep the right things important.