Hounds rounding a learning curve

FORT MADISON – The Fort Madison Bloodhounds continue to learn how to play as a relatively young squad sprinkled with impactful seniors.
The Hounds looked remarkably stronger in the second half of last week’s 32-13 loss to West Burlington at Richmond Stadium, and take on a Central Lee squad in an intracounty contest this Friday in First Responder Appreciation Night.
The Hawks are coming off a lopsided 30-0 loss to Albia in Donnellson Friday, in a game Head Coach Doug Dodds said was “self-inflicted”. Fort Madison and Central Lee, despite being less than 30 minutes apart, haven’t played since 2019 when the Bloodhounds won 17-0.
Fort Madison Head Coach Derek Doherty said Thursday it’s good to have the Hawks back on the schedule.
“It's a game that we've always felt made sense and it's always a great gate and a great environment. We are schools that are not vastly different and I just think Lee County games make sense to me,” Doherty said.
“First of all, Doug, I think, is a fantastic coach. I have the utmost respect for him. He's been at it for a long time, he knows the game, and that goes through his staff.”
He said the Hawks are shored up in their systems and know what they want to do, but it’s not a guessing game for opponents and that’s something the Hounds have encountered for the past three weeks..

“None of those teams that we’ve played so far have surprised us, they’ve just done a better job executing their game plan than we have,” he said.
The Hawks present with junior quarterback Brett Cook ,who hasn’t had a lot of success through the air through two games, going 2 for 9 for 44 yards. He does have a couple TD passes, however. He is a threat to run out of the scheme racking up roughly just over 100 yards on the year. Central Lee’s runs behind a big offensive line but were tied up pretty well by Albia last week. Ward Fraise has 83 yards on nine carries, while Peter Seyb has 53 yards on 23 carries
The Hawks managed just 69 yards of total offense in the loss last week. Fort Madison is just a little better, but their offense opened up just a bit against the Falcons last week. Sophomore Stefan Berlett is right at 51% completions on 51 attempts. He has 199 yards and three TDs while throwing one pick.
Moses Thacher and Eric Cornelis each have 62 yards on the ground for the Bloodhounds. Thacher’s getting the bulk of the hard runs while Cornelis is picking up some yardage in the fourth quarter.
Three different receivers have touchdowns including Brody Ulik, Conner Horn, and Owen Huffman. Sophomore Aurelio Jaciunde is as explosive as anyone in the area, but has yet to find the endzone. He also is intergral in the return game averaging 42.3 yards per kick return on three returns.
Doherty says the education of the young dawgs is part of the process for him as a teacher, and for them as student athletes.
“I guess, as an educator, you think about it as education and we're building our curriculum and working on it. Putting in the strategies necessary to get the concept completed, and we see glimpses of good things. But we're not fully completing it, so we're trying to make those fixes,” Doherty said.
“But that's what we mean when we say ‘stayin the process’ and our kids, we do feel like they're getting more and more of it. They're getting smarter inside of our concepts and how we run our offense, and how we run our defense, and how we run our special teams and it's just, it's a learning curve right now.”