#CFCHSFB PREVIEW (ONT – OTTAWA): Lions focused on shutting down Coyotes passing attack

The St. Mark Lions are looking for their first victory of the season against the St. Francis Xavier Coyotes. The Lions are 0-2 on the season but are looking at this week’s game as another step down the road to a championship game at the end of the season.

“There’s only a handful of Division 1 teams so that’s our goal. The guys know Rome wasn’t built in a day and that it’s not how you start it’s how you finish. We just have to stay positive and working to keep getting better,” said Head Coach Paul Brown.

The Lions suffered a 26-8 loss to the St. Joseph Jaguars in week 1 game at TD Place. Their other loss on the season was a 28-0 defeat against the St. Peter’s Knights.

This week the Lions know they are in tough against the Coyotes who have quality players at both the Quarterback and Running Back positions.

“St. Pete’s just beat them 7-0. They have a good Quarterback, decent Running Back and their Quarterback can throw the ball, I think they’re going to be pretty similar to St. Joe’s in their more balanced attack,” said Brown.

The Quarterback is a strong player polished player according to Brown. If the Lions can shut down the St. Fx passing game and force the Coyotes to beat them on the ground, he will be pleased.

As far as the Lion’s own offence is concerned the injuries that have plagued them all year have prevented them from practicing together a lot and they are still working out of their base packages on offence.

The Lions offence will be focused around the ground game and Brown wants to work on the offensive line opening up more holes for the Running Backs and better protecting their Quarterback. The Lions will be working out of multi-back sets with lots of backs buzzing around, according to Brown.

“Defensively obviously we want to get some pressure that’s one thing and we want to get our secondary playing together and working together,” said Brown.

Cohesion in the secondary will be crucial if the Lions want to achieve their goal of shutting down the Coyotes passing game. The Lions will be working out of their base 4-3 defensive package as they try and get comfortable in that formation.

The Lions will be leaning heavily on Linebacker Nick Russo on defence and two way studs Nicarlo Funai (LB,OL,FB) and Marcus Sickert (S/WR) to help them with their first game of the season.

Regardless of the game’s outcome Brown is taking the season one game at a time and wants the Lion’s to keep working on their fundamentals so they can be where they want at the end of the season.

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