Most of the county’s teams managed to shake off the rust that they displayed in their opening games, with much-improved performances seen across the board. Big plays abounded, though turnovers and defensive lapses were still an issue.

Offensive improvement was evident in almost every game played, with the average amount of points scored at 26.3, which is up almost eight points from last week’s 18.6.

The jump could be attributed in part to the nine scoring plays of 35 yards or more. Four of those plays came from more than 70 yards.

Cherokee coach Josh Shaw felt the increase in scoring was due to a lack of knowledge available to the defense, and he believes that, as the season goes on, the number of points scored will decrease.

“This early in the season, when you’re only two games deep, you don’t really know your opponent’s game plan,” Shaw said. “You already know what your offense is going to do — you can plan for that. But, on defense, you’re forced to react, and you don’t know what’s coming, so it gives the offenses the upper hand early in the season.”

Shaw said he could see improvements in his team’s offensive execution in comparison to the Warriors’ season-opening loss to Creekview.

“If we had played the way we did (Friday) night the week before, we would have been much better off,” Shaw said. “We executed much better on all sides of the ball. We probably cut down on our number of errors by two-thirds.”

Sequoyah coach James Teter felt similarly.

“Each week, our offense is getting a little better,” he said. “We had a great week of practice, and we’ve been making the most out of our first week adjustments.”

While the total yardage gained among the county’s teams grew Friday to 1,984 yards, from 1,851 the previous week, the turnover ratio increased as well.

Fourteen turnovers were amassed between the six county teams last night —almost triple the total number of turnovers — five — from the week before.

Sequoyah and Woodstock both had three turnovers Friday, while River Ridge fared the worst with five.

“We just threw bad passes,” Teter said of the Chiefs’ miscues. “We did a good job in the opening week hanging onto the ball, so I’d say it was just a bad night for us.”

Only Etowah managed to avoid turning the ball over at all.

The number of penalties incurred remained roughly the same, with Cherokee and Creekview decreasing their number of infractions. Etowah and Woodstock were penalized more.

“We did a better job this week, but, again, we had too many penalties,” said Creekview coach Al Morrell, whose team has been whistled for more than 12 penalties in both of their games.