Hendersonville football coach Bruce Hatfield wasn’t happy with the Commandos performance in last week’s loss to Riverdale, so the main goal this week wasn’t as much preparing for Lebanon, their Friday night opponent, it was more about fixing what he felt his team lacked on the field.

“Riverdale totally dominated us last week physically, and we had a lot of mental mistakes, so the first part of the week that’s what we focused on with the team,” said Hatfield. “The last part of the week will be about Lebanon and our preparation for them because they have a much better team than the one we saw last year.”

According to Hatfield the Blue Devils are big, physical, and have a good set of skill players on both sides of the ball.

“They’re very big up front, averaging 280 pounds on the offensive line,” said Hatfield. “They probably should’ve beaten Wilson Central in week zero, but then they came back and dominated a pretty good Rossview team, so we think they’ll be very motivated when they come over here Friday night.”

Lebanon (1-1) uses a variety of formations on offense, but uses a spread formation to base most of its sets out of.

“We’ve seen so much from them that it’s hard to tell exactly what they’ll be using on offense,” said Hatfield. “We’ve seen some spread, and some option, but the thing that has stuck out to us is the size of their line.

“They average 280 lbs., and use a two quarterback system that has worked well for them, and they have some really talented players in their skill positions, so we’re going to have to be at our best to have a chance Friday night.”

Defensively the Blue Devils will also run a variety of different sets, but Hatfield said that their speed really sticks out.

“They really get after it on defense, and have good hustle,” said Hatfield. “They tackle well, and get to ball quick, and once they’re there they lay it on you.

“They’re a much more physical team than we saw last year, so if we don’t play any better than we did last week we’re going to be in trouble.”

One thing Lebanon didn’t see from the Commandos last season was quarterback Elijah Howell because he was nursing an injury, but he’ll be out there this year, and is looking forward to help his team redeem themselves after last week’s performance.

“Elijah is a good leader for us, and is a strong presence on the field,” said Hatfield. “He made a couple of mistakes last week, but our protection wasn’t as good as it should’ve been either.

“Give him credit because he hung in there, even after taking the shots he got, so yes I do think he’ll be motivated on Friday, and that’s an expectation we have weekly.”

Kickoff time for tonight’s contest will be at 7 p.m. at Paul Decker field.

Pope John Paul II football team has had a week to prepare for its first home contest of the season tonight when the Knights host McCallie from Chattanooga.

Coach Jeff Rutledge admits it’s not going to be an easy task, but says his team has shown improvement from week zero’s game against Clarksville.

“We had some mental mistakes that really cost us in our first game, but we’ve worked hard to correct those over the past couple of weeks,” said Rutledge. “We also had some mistakes in our special teams, but the one thing we’re looking for Friday is to be consistent.”

By Chris Lynn

The Riverdale football team deemed last Friday’s game against Hendersonville as sweet redemption.

The Warriors got that redemption with a 22-14 win, but the Commandos had a hand in helping in that come to fruition.

“You can’t commit as many penalties as we had, and make the kind of mental mistakes we did and expect to beat a good team like Riverdale,” said Hendersonville Coach Bruce Hatfield. “I don’t think there’s ever a reason to have personal fouls and tonight we had more than our share, so that’s definitely something we’re going to address.”

Hendersonville (0-1) was hit with over 110 yards in penalties, a stark contrast to Riverdale’s 19 yards on three penalties.

“It’s just a matter of being disciplined when we’re out there, and that’s something we didn’t show tonight,” said Hatfield. “Having these kinds of penalties is putting ourselves in bad positions, killing drives for us, and allowing more chances for a team that just didn’t need the extra help.”

The Hendersonville Rangers 10u baseball team didn’t waste any time collecting their first piece of hardware.

The Rangers won the Battle of the Diamond in Mt. Juliet in their first appearance as a team with only three weeks of practice.

“Half of these kids have never played in an atmosphere like this before, but they are used to being the best players on their teams,” said Rangers Coach Andy Gilley. “They played some great competition over the past weekend, but they did it with some great pitching and fielding, and had some timely two out hits.