HJ Sports Blog

Its the third week of the high school football season and the Chargers are hitting the road for the first away game of the year. This week will also be the first, and only game DC faces a non-conference opponent as they take on Waseca.
The Chargers are 1-1 after two weeks and Waseca is 0-2 after a 0-6 loss to Albert Lea in the first week and a 44-20 loss to Class 5A team, Minneapolis Southwest.

Although DC head coach Ryan Weinandt doesn’t know a lot about Waseca, what he does know is that they were in the Section 2AAA finals last season and will be very physical.
“From what we’ve seen on tape, and from what we’ve heard from our scout that went down, is that they are very physical,” he said. “They hit hard, they play hard, and they have pretty good size. There running backs are very athletic.”
After DC’s 21-8 loss last week to Glencoe-Silver Lake, the Chargers had plenty to work on over practice this week, and much of it dealt with the guys in the trenches.
“We looked at a lot of our blocking. Whenever we had a breakdown on a play it was usually somewhere in the blocking or making the right read on the defense,” Weinandt said. “We really focused on those techniques. We have four new guys on the offensive line this year so there is going to be some of that. We are working on improving each player individually, and that should help our overall scheme.”
The Charger offense was only able to muster 109 yards rushing and one touchdown against the defending state champs, despite being handed excellent field position by the defense on several occasions. DC will look to try and run the ball better tonight and control the ground game.
Perhaps the biggest adjustment the Charger offense will have to make, though, is getting used to its new starting quarterback, sophomore Andy Haataja.
After Tyler Irvin went down late in the fourth quarter last week with a broken arm, Haataja stepped in and completed two out of three pass attempts for 26 yards.
While a secondary quarterback always has to be ready to go in, Haataja has now had a week’s worth of time and practice to prepare for his new role as starting QB.
“Every week we have him take some snaps because you have to be ready,” Weinandt said. “This week, he has been fully immersed in that.
“He has been our starting free safety, and now he has been focusing pretty much exclusively at quarterback.”
With Haataja taking over the duties of starting QB, sophomore Logan Benda is likely to fill his spot on defense.
Junior Jeff Janckila would likely be the next in line at quarterback should anything happen to Haataja.
As for Irvin’s status for the rest of the year, he and his coaches are taking a very relaxed approach to his recovery. They want him to be completely healthy before he gets under a helmet again, and if that means missing the rest of the season, so be it.
“We just take whatever the doctors tell him,” Weinandt said. “The most important thing is that he takes it easy now and lets it heal. We don’t have any pressure on him to come back. If he gets in a situation where he maybe could, then we would look at it again. But, right now we are just looking at getting him healed.”