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Northlake Christain may be due for some good fortune in 2012. - (Ellis Lucia / The Times-Picayune)
After his team averaged giving up 31.1 points in its first nine games last season, including a horrendous 46.7 for the first three, Northlake Christian Coach Tony Agresta decided he had to fire his defensive coordinator ? himself.
?I?d been trying to run both sides of the ball,? said Agresta, who appointed assistant Mark Robert to succeed him. ?And it?s impossible to be making defensive adjustments during a game when you?re also calling plays.?
?I should have realized that earlier.?
Even that, Agresta acknowledges, may not have prevented a fall from winning the District 8-2A championship in 2010 to 4-6 and missing the playoffs in 2011.
Too much inexperience compounded by too many injuries probably couldn?t be overcome by any coaching adjustments.
But it?s obvious the Wolverines? top priority for 2012 is shoring up the defense, even more than replacing 2,000-yard All-State running back Mallery Mele, who also was the team?s kicker and return man, if last year is to wind up being only a temporary dip for what had been a program on the way up.
?First, Mark is an experienced coach and an excellent game-planner,? Agresta said. ?We?re not changing our basic things, but we?re going to tweak a few things.
?We?re a program that prided itself on defense and ball-control offense. You can come back from a bad half on offense, but when you?re defense is giving up points, it?s a lot harder.?
It wasn?t, Agresta stressed, a lack of effort on the players part. But injuries never let the team get anywhere near to full strength. One starter, linebacker Landry Lyon, still is trying to come back from a staph infection.
?Our defense is based on bringing up our linebackers to make tackles,? Agresta said. ?You can?t get any more essential than that.
?We have to have guys that can run to the ball.?
One player whose problem was what happened after he ran to the ball is senior linebacker Will Sigl.
Sigl, who also starts at tight end, played last season with a torn labrum which he says left him about 80 percent effectiveness.
?My shoulder would pop out two of three times a game,? Sigl said. ?So I couldn?t go at full speed.
?And I couldn?t wrap up, so I just tried to run through guys.?
Despite the pain, Sigl said, his situation was less frustrating than seeing his team struggle.
?We felt like the district championship had been a big breakthrough,? he said. ?And we knew we were capable of being so much better.
?At least we finished on a good note (a 37-0 victory against downtrodden St. Helena Central) to let our seniors go out the right way. But it wasn?t any fun not going to the playoffs.?
Along with Sigl, six other defensive starters from last year return, led by All-District junior tackle Riley Risher, senior free safety Dane Landry and sophomore linebacker Adam Riche, who was promoted to starter last year due to the injuries.
The offense won?t have a Mele-like player. Actually, Mele wasn?t supposed to be Mele last year, but he improved so rapidly as the season went along that handing him the ball in the Wolverines? two-tight end, single back offense became virtually the only option.
Junior Taylor Mussachia will take over the tailback spot and he will get plenty of carries, although probably not as many as Mele?s 28 per-game of last year.
That?s because the focus of the offense will be junior quarterback Josh O?Rear. Last season, O?Rear primarily handed the ball off to Mele with occasional passes thrown in.
This time, he may not be throwing much more, but he definitely will be keeping the ball more.
?I think I had to get used to the speed of the game last year,? O?Rear said. ?We?ve got a bunch of guys like that on offense, but we?re all a year older and hopefully better.?
The return of four of five starters on the line, led by Risher and senior guard Garrett Loupe, should help that happen.
But if the Wolverines are to challenge for the district title or at least return to the playoffs, it will depend on the recovery of the defense.
To Sigl, whose recovery from surgery is ahead of schedule, that?s a given.
?We?re going to be strong because people are going to have their heads in the game,? he said. ?The other teams aren?t going to know what hit ?em.?
Source: http://highschoolsports.nola.com/news/article/618457197851581193
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