Dougherty ready for tough bout against Berrien

ALBANY — With the first win of the season under their belt, the Dougherty Trojans will try to use that momentum this week as they host Berrien.

While the defense came up with a number of big turnovers in last week’s 18-14 win over Mitchell County, the offense struggled to capitalize. Dougherty head coach Corey Joyner said the focus this week has been getting into an offensive rhythm early so the defense can get a break.

“We looked pretty good. We’re trying to work out some kinks where we’re starting off too slow,” he said. “The defense did a tremendous job last week, played 49 plays in the first half. So we have to do a better job of sustaining drives so we can make sure that our defense isn’t on the field as long.”

It was the defense that made several goal-line stands last week to keep the game from getting away. Joyner gave credit to his defensive line and added he hopes the unit can recreate that effort this week against an offense that has a number of different weapons.

“We believe on of the strengths on the team is our defensive line and linebackers,” he said. “We did a pretty good job of getting upfield and beating them at the point of attack. Hopefully we can do that this week with Berrien’s running back, and they’ve got a great quarterback too in (Monteo Brooks), so we gotta do a good job of housing their quarterback.”

The Rebels also come into Friday night’s 7:30 p.m. contest at Hugh Mills Stadium with a 1-1 record, and Joyner said he expects it to be a dogfight.

“Berrien is a great team. They won the last game they played 38-13, they can score, they can play pretty good defense,” he said. “They hustle and get around the ball and do a good job up front on blocking. We’ve got our work cut out for us for another great game.”

With the weather possibly being a factor, Joyner said that they have to make every moment on the field count offensively.

“We gotta score quick,” he said. “We gotta score quick, we gotta score fast. We don’t know what the weather may bring, so we gotta make sure we get points in and make sure we play some good defense and play well on special teams and we should be fine.”