Coming off a 3-5 season in which they fell short of the playoffs, the Aplington-Parkersburg football team has entered the offseason. With his first season in the program under his belt, Head Coach Jeff Pikna says emphasizing year-round preparation will be a key to taking a step forward.
“Emphasizing how important it is to do that to get yourself ready for a long grueling season, so you can play into weeks like that are going on right now instead of just trying to show up and put it all on when the season starts,” Pikna says. “That’s probably number one, and then just just getting together and making sure that we all have the same vision. What kind of team we want to be, what we have to do to be that team. What kind of leadership do we want to go behind? What kind of people do we want listed as captains and guys telling other guys how we want to operate and stuff. I think it was a lot of learning experience for especially me being my first year here, and all coming together and figuring out who belongs where and how things are going to flow.”
Pikna’s hard-nosed style of coaching helped bring the defense to life. Despite not playing in the playoffs, the team ranks eighth in Class 1A in tackles for loss with 59 in eight games. The team’s 11 fumble recoveries are currently the second-most in 1A.
“We probably do stuff a little bit different than most teams. We hit a lot and we tackle a lot in practice all week, which especially in today’s age, is not very common. But just bringing that element of that toughness back and having kids fly to the ball, we use a double whistle in practice. So just developing those tendencies that make a tough defense, a hard-nosed defense, and then combining that with the prep and the play calling that was going on. And we had a great defensive staff that did a ton of prep every single week. So combining those two things really led to good results. And I think it will continue to do that.”
12 seniors will depart the program.
