Jamboree gives DN a chance to take the field

The jamboree, which was held this year at Arcata High School, gave the Warriors a chance to runs plays on both offense and defense against their fellow three teams from the Big 4 Conference.

While only a glorified scrimmage, the event plays a key role for the team each year to get an early look at the Big 4 competition and see where they stand a few weeks before the regular season begins.

New Warrior head coach Bob Hadfield said he was pleased that “everyone got to play” and had a chance to see the field. Hadfield said that  overall it was “certainly not bad” although “nothing stood out.” But, nothing “terribly weak” occurred either, he said.

“It’s good practice,” he said about the jamboree, adding the real test will begin with the squad’s first game of the year on Sept. 11 at home against Hidden Valley, Ore.

He added that the squad is still getting used to things and is still in the process of completely coming together as a team and learning the playbook, but he believes they should be prepared to go out and have a productive year.

In the needs improvement department Hadfield said the Warriors have to do a better job of stopping the run on defense, saying they were “pushed around” way too  often.

On offense, Hadfield said the offensive line still has work to do on improving their pass blocking skills, but he  said that was to be expected because they have not gone over this too much in practice so far.

“We’ll get that straight,” he said.

The Warriors need to do a better job of being more mentally prepared and reduce silly mistakes, he said.

Hadfield added that from the reports he received the junior varsity team looked quite good at the jamboree.