Before the start of the 2012 high school football season, the Ontario Warriors were one of the clear cut favorites to win the North Central Conference and make a run in the postseason with several starters back from last years 8-2 squad. While both of those feats may still be achievable, the Warriors haven't done themselves any favors with their 1-2 start.

Coming home to play at Copeland Field in their home opener last Friday after a 40-12 beat down of Willard the week before, Ontario was a heavy favorite to defeat a Shelby team that had lost their previous 13 contests. But the Whippets surprised many with their dominating 34-14 performance on the Warriors home turf, much to the chagrin of head coach Scott Kreger.

"We didn't play well, that's what it boils down to," Kreger says. "We didn't coach well and we didn't play well. It just was a bad team performance."

One of the senior leaders on Kreger's squad Eli Burdette shared some of his coaches perspectives on the loss, saying "They beat us up front. They were more physical and they came ready to play. We just have to get better." 

The Whippets were able to contain Warriors running back Jordan Campbell for the most part, holding the junior to just 71 yards on 24 carries, after he entered the game averaging 218 yards per game. Shelby was able to bottle up the NCC's second leading rusher by stacking the box with multiple defenders, in part because of an ineffective passing game.

"We've got to go out and be more consistent accross the board throwing, catching, making plays," Kreger says. He added that his wideouts need to do a better job catching the ball when presented with an opportunity to make a play for the team.

Campbell thinks the offense will come together soon because in his opinion the Warriors have the best talent in the NCC this year. Campbell made no excuses for last weeks Shelby debacle, saying "They had a good game plan but we just got to keep digging deep as a team, and I feel like we're having a pretty good week this week."   

Practice for Ontario has changed a little bit this week, as Kreger has some of the younger guys on his coaching staff interjecting high energy into warm-ups to start off each day. Burdette welcomes the new uptempo changes, saying "Practice itself we need intensity. We just need to come out here and get ready to play. Everyone needs to do their job and when we do our jobs we're pretty good."

The Warriors hope to be better than good Friday night when they go back on the road to Bucyrus for the third time in four games for their conference opener. Ontario thrashed the Redmen 56-7 a season ago and Campbell is planning on a similar result in the teams final game as NCC foes.

"It's my last time playing Bucyrus, so I'm going to come out and show them what's up," Campbell says. "As a team, everybody, we're going to put it on them."

Kickoff is set for 7:00 pm at Bucyrus, with live streaming audio of the game on WMFD.com and replays of the action Saturday and Sunday evening at 7:00 pm on WOHZ TV.

@BrianSkowronski