It does not get any easier for the Culver City High School varsity football team. After facing three straight very good teams the Centaurs will encounter maybe the best team on their regular season 10 game schedule, Leuzinger. They travel to Leuzinger on Friday for a 7 p.m. contest.
Culver City is 3-4 overall and 0-2 in the Bay league and Leuzinger is 5-1 overall and 2-0 in league play. Leuzinger is the No. 18 team in the CIF Southern Section and 32nd in the state. The Centaurs have two more league games after the Friday game against Lawndale at home on Oct. 24, and Oct. 31, at Inglewood. If they can win two out of the three remaining games, they have a chance to make the CIF playoffs.
“We are just taking it one game at a time,” said Culver City head football coach Jahmal Wright. “Two of the three opponents are very good high school football teams. To beat Leuzinger we will have to be physical, match our opponent’s intensity and we also can’t have self-inflicted wounds. We can’t turn the ball over and make it tougher on ourselves. We have to be ready, and we have to stay focused the entire game.”
That’s something the Centaurs did not do last week during their 37-14 loss to Mira Costa. The score was 14-14 midway through the second quarter, but Culver City gave up 23 points in the last few minutes of the quarter. “I think the main thing we need to do to improve right now is not let one mistake turn into four or five mistakes,” said Wright. “We have to be able to bounce back when things don’t go exactly the way we want them to. “We are able to play well when everything is going smooth, but we can’t have one bad play turn into another bad play.”
On offense the Centaurs need to protect the quarterback and run the football according to Wright. “We have to have a balanced attack. When we get into scoring position, we need to be able to put points on the score board and we need to created some turnovers on defense.”