Every team hopes to get better from one game to the next.
Dickinson High football coach Dave Michaelson is certainly hoping his team improves after a 35-8 shellacking at the hands of Fargo North last week.
Michaelson and his Midgets will hope things go better in their home opener against West Fargo at 7 p.m. today at Whitney Stadium.
According to Michaelson, he has his team concentrating on the fundamentals of football.
"We're doing a lot of the fundamental things," Michaelson said, "all the way from blocking and executing to tackling."
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Last week, the Midgets were assaulted through the air by the Fargo North passing attack. Dickinson gave up 252 passing yards to go with four TDs through the air.
"We're not going to push the panic button and say we're a bad team at defending the pass," Michaelson said. "There are things we have to get better at. Pass defense was a strength for us last year and we got a few guys back in that area. Our scheme fixed a lot of things (this week)."
Senior tailback Mitch Kudrna is expected to have more of an impact in tonight's contest. He wasn't given much work after the Midgets fell behind and were forced to start chucking the ball.
"We were forced into situations where we had to throw the ball," Michaelson said. "We do need to establish the ground game."
Michaelson indicated that his team needs to run the ball to be able to control the clock.
"We have to do a decent job of moving the football," Michaelson said. "We can't have the defense on the field as much as we did last week."
West Fargo runs an offense similar to Fargo North, but with a few differences. The Packers are fresh off a 12-10 non-conference victory over Bismarck Century last week. West Fargo managed only 154 yards of total offense, but hung its hat on defense. The Packers gave up 71 rushing yards to Century, but held the Patriots to 19 on 17 carries in the first half.
