#RockReport Varsity at Harrison

Last night, your Rocks traveled to Harrison High School to help the Raiders break in their new field. They came away with a 28-16 victory. It was a tale of two halves, as the Rocks jumped out to a quick 21-0 lead in the first, extending it to a 28-3 score at the half. The Raiders, however, kept fighting, scoring 13 unanswered before time ran out.

Offensively, the Shamrock offensive line followed the lead of Justin Case, opening up big holes for consistent ground gains by running back Nathan Nguyen. Cam Simons contributed a nifty scamper of his own for a TD, capitalizing on a Rock D takeaway. Altogether the offensive racked up 162 yards on the ground and three touchdown runs from three different ball carriers.

The Rock D generated three takeaways. They were anchored on the defensive line by Ryan Mahoney, while Jeremiah Edwards added consistent play at the linebacker position. There were two big plays on defense. The first was Shannon Bola's interception early in the game that evened the takeaway totals after an early Shamrock turnover. The second was a pure hustle play from Jeremiah Edward, chasing down a streaking Raider runner and saving a touchdown.

In the special teams phase, long snapping specialist Sam Lupear delivered strikes all night. The Rocks were also able to slip out of a tight spot deep in their own territory when Andy Manzur delivered a 40 yard punt out of the end-zone.

Special mention should be given to Seth Poriah, Blair Clark, and Griffin Pope. These Rocks made significant contributions in preparing the team for the Friday contest. During the week, they brought it Now, providing the best possible look for their fellow teammates.

Next Friday, you Rocks will host Decatur Central for the home opener. Kickoff is scheduled for 7pm.

#GameDay Opening Night - Harrison Raiders

The 2018 Indiana high school football season is officially upon us! Tonight, your Rocks will travel to William Henry Harrison High School to take on the Raiders. Harrison finished 6-4 (5-2 NCC) last year, getting knocked out of the 5A tournament by Kokomo in the first round.

Harrison has a brand new artificial field surface this year, having redone it in the off-season. They will be looking to establish a winning tradition on the new field, and the Rocks will be looking to spoil the grand opening. It should be a fantastic atmosphere for opening night, and we hope you will make the journey to support us!

Need directions? We've got you covered:

Scrimmage Details

Tomorrow, your Rocks will finally get to compete against someone not wearing green or gold. Friday's scrimmage with Ben Davis will be the traditional last tune-up before the season kicks off on August 17th. Since the scrimmage is organized much differently from games, we wanted to provide the details a little early.

The start will still be at 7pm over at Ben Davis High School. The cost will be $6 to get in. Here's a map with directions:



And, as for the format, here's a link to the full rules on the IHSAA website. We'll be following option B. Hope to see you there!

Practice is Underway!

Your Rocks are back for another thrilling season of high school football. Practice has started, and we wanted to share some images and videos from our first practice. Since family and commitment are the foundation of our team, we like to focus on building that up first. As such, you won't see a lot of football in these images, but you will see teamwork and perseverance. We hope you're as excited as we are to get this season started!

Beam Work

Rope Course

Rope Bridge

Hill Climb

Log Carry

Kaden's Gold Glove

Kaden's site came across my desk today, and I wanted to share. One of my all-time favorite movies is Field of Dreams. In particular, the scene where he plays catch with his dad at the end gets me choked up every time. As much as I love football, there is something special about grabbing a glove and throwing a ball around with a parent. Kaden's site has the simple goal of wanting to share that special moment with as many children as possible by recycling old gloves, getting them to folks who might not otherwise have the opportunity. So whether you choose to play catch with a football or some other ball, I thought this a wonderful idea from a group just down the road in Carmel, definitely worth sharing.

The Danger of Opioids

As a program, we try to pick areas of focus outside of football to try to help our players prepare for the larger game of life. Often, this includes learning even for us coaches. One of our focus topics is Opioid Abuse. I wanted to share a few sobering statistics that were recently passed across my desk...

• 2016 Accidental Deaths:

1. Overdose – 63,600
2. Guns – 38,000
3. Car Accidents – 37,400

• More people have died from opioid overdose than in the Vietnam War.
• The US is 5% of the world’s population but uses 80% of the world’s opioids.
• Indiana ranks 16th in opioid deaths.
• Heroin use has doubled in 18–25 year-olds in the last decade.
• 80% of heroin users started with prescription opioids by the age of 15.
• Using any substance by age 15 increases the addiction rate 5x due to brain development.

Clearly, you can see why this is an area where we really see value in educating ourselves and our players. For more information, visit: www.overdoselifeline.org.

USA Football Article

With the focus being on football this past weekend, there was ample opportunity to review the "state of the game" across America. One article caught our attention from USA Today. If you are curious about the national conversation, it is a good read.

In Westfield, we have prided ourselves in being on the forefront of the needed changes within the game. We have pioneered new tackling techniques within the state, as well as employed cutting edge methods for diagnosing and treating head trauma. It has been our hope that, by doing our jobs as coaches and learning how to teach the safest techniques that science can offer for the protection of our players - by keeping player safety at the forefront of our minds - that government intervention will be seen as completely unnecessary, at least in our neck of the woods. We also hope that any parents out there trying to decide whether to allow their child to play football or not can find confidence in putting their child into our hands; that we will always do our utmost to return them in even better condition than when we found them.

We believe very much in our sport and its role within our community. We take our jobs a educators seriously with respect to player safety. If, as a parent or player, you ever have any question about how we accomplish all of this, please do not hesitate to contact us one way or another (there is contact information on this page as well as our various social media outlets), especially if you are on the fence about the role football could play in your child's life. We are very proud and confident to be Rocks.