While the 53-0 may not show it, the Wildcats showed plenty of positive signs in Friday’s loss to Windsor.

“I thought we played hard, but, you know, Windsor was a good Class 1 school, and they proved it,” said Coach Steve Samson. “We’ve just got to keep plugging away and keep playing hard. We had a couple of good plays and moved the ball on them. We were just watching film. We were one or two blocks away from having success against them. We have to keep plugging away. We can’t give up now.”

A few players supported from the sideline due to injury, which likely played a role, but Samson insists that players improved. “We got some subs in, and they did a good job,” he said.

Craig Laughlin continues to be the team’s workhorse, with the most carries. Cameron Hoelscher also had some good runs, and broke free for a big gain that put the Wildcats at the Windsor 15, but the team stalled. Full stats were unavailable.

“On the next play, we ran an option and read it fairly well, said Samson. “We gave it to Craig, and he got three or four yards on the fullback give, which is a pretty decent play on the option. On the next play, we fumbled the snap.”

That made it third and six, and Linn ran a counter play again. “We missed a block,” Samson said. “They got in the backfield and made a tackle. So then we’re at fourth and eight, and we went for a pass play. We missed a block again, and they pressured Hunter (Bish). He threw off his back foot, but Gus (Peters) was open. Gus made a diving attempt for it and couldn’t haul it in. If he hauls it in, it’s first down at the five.”

Instead, the Wildcats turned the ball over on downs, and a few plays later, the Greyhounds scored on a long run, which at that point gave Windsor a 51-0 lead with 4:08 remaining in the third.

“We had opportunities but didn’t capitalize on them, and that’s just playing the game,” said Samson, adding that despite the team’s struggle to put together a scoring drive, he is pleased with the effort. “Windsor was good, don’t get me wrong, but we there were a lot of plays that if we made one block, there’s a play there. If we had moved and taken the right step, it would have changed the game. We were one block away from a big play. I’m not going to say we would have scored on every possession, but I bet we’d have scored on at least three possessions. Down the road, do we score, or do we explode again? I don’t know; I can’t tell you that, but we moved the ball a lot better on Friday than we did the last game. We ran two good plays, got a first down, and then missed a block on another play. We’re one block away from being a decent team, in my opinion, and it’s just going to take work.”

Defensively, Samson saw some good things. “We’ve seen some kids that made good tackles, but we still have a long way to go on tackling. We missed a lot of tackles that we should have made. We did see some better effort from our defense. On some plays, we actually had some guys chase people down, and we’re playing a lot of minutes. With 33 kids — and young kids playing — we’re getting a lot of good experience for the future. It’s just going to take time to learn it all and actually start winning games. We’ve got to work on coming downhill and actually sticking somebody. I thought we would be further along than we are now, but we’ll get there. I didn’t think we were as far as long as we were in our first year, but we finally got there before the end of the year. We were actually playing fairly well by the end of that first year. I thought we played better against Windsor than we did against St. James. I’ve seen more positive things than I did in the second game, so they’re right there. I know, to the average fan, it’s few and far between, but they’re close. As long as we keep improving, and we have, that’s all I can ask as a coach.”

Maintaining morale is an essential aspect for the third-year Linn coach. “I tell the guys every day that nobody is going to give us anything,” Samson said. “We’re going to have to earn everything we get. We have to work extremely hard during the week to prepare ourselves and make sure that we don’t make as many mistakes as we’re making. Right now, we’re not doing that, and that’s showing on the scoreboard.”

Samson added the speed of the game is faster and that makes a difference. “We’re not to that level yet; it’s game three, and we need to start picking it up,” he added. “That’s what we’re working on this week in practice. We’re going to have to pick it up in games because after this week, we’re going into conference play. That’s going to be just as hard as our normal games because we’re in a good conference.”

Linn travels to Mexico on Friday to play Missouri Military Academy. “We have to travel, and that’s another aspect we will have to learn. It’s nice to play at home because you can relax. When you travel, you have to load everything on a bus and make sure you got everything. You’ve got to put all that in the trailer, haul it up there, unload it, make sure you got everything prepped. It’s a process, and right now, that’s what we’re learning.”

Friday’s game kicks off at 7 p.m.