Chiefs drop first game
<p>Ronan’s Cole Snyder (left) tries to evade a would-be tackler in the first quarter of the Chiefs’ loss to Eureka on Friday. The Ronan offense struggled with turnovers throughout the ballgame.</p>
RONAN — Ronan’s defense showed up to play on Friday night.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, their defense had to play a lot.
Seven turnovers and a 24-10 loss to Eureka (2-0) later, the Chiefs find themselves in an early season hole.
“We just made a lot of early season mistakes that ended up being a big deal,” Ronan coach Jim Benn said.
The offensive output was there—Ronan managed 265 yards of total output—but the consistency was not. They coughed up the ball four times inside their own 20-yard line.
“You don’t win games if you do that,” Benn said.
He said the first step to turning things around is getting timing down on offense.
“Our offense has a lot of moving parts, and we just don’t have that down quite yet,” Benn said. “The heartening thing is that we did start moving as the game went on. Little things prevented us from making big plays.”
Another adjustment, Benn said, is to change the way he utilizes his quarterback, Connor Benn, a senior who also happens to be his son.
“We need to get him in the [shotgun] or get him on the edge. He’s more of a runner than a passer anyway,” said the elder Benn, who is notorious for running the ball a lot.
Luckily for the Ronan offense, the defensive fortitude already seems to be there. The Chiefs’ curtain even generated points of their own, forcing two Eureka safeties.
Benn credited new defensive coordinator Ryan Wells with the progress.
“He’s really worked hard putting in a new style of defense,” Benn said. “Our kids are really thriving on it, and I think as the season goes along they’ll get even better at it.”
Wells switched the primary set to a 4-3 defense, which allows Ronan to better utilize its size up front. It already resulted in the pair of safeties and a duo of sacks for Andy Clary.
Benn expects his team to continue to improve as they get to know their assignments more in the new system and become more comfortable on offense.
Score by Quarter
Eureka 0 12 0 12 – 24
Ronan 2 6 0 2 – 10
Scoring Summary
R – Safety
E – Jankovsky 8 run (run failed)
E – Bakkila 40 pass from Perez (run failed)
R – Morgan 5 run (pass failed)
E – Jankovsky 9 run (run failed)
R – Safety
E – Perez 1 run (run failed)