Fenwick hosts Clinton Massie on Friday.
“The message I told the team after last week’s game was just that,” Mueller said. “We were sitting in the same spot last year. Our schedule gets heavier as the season goes. Our conference is always tough and we still have three non-conference games against good opponents with Mount Healthy, Edgewood and Clinton Massie this week. We’re doing everything we need to do to this point, but we just need to keep getting better.”
Mueller said he has seen improvement in all three phases of the game so far this season, compared to where the Falcons were last year. To some extent, that is to be expected in the second year with a new coach, but especially considering how young Fenwick was in 2021.
The Falcons played six sophomores, one freshman and several juniors last year and seven or eight starters returned on each side of the ball. Positions that lost starters to graduation also had young depth that gained experience.
“Being our second year as a staff, there is more continuity, so I think they understand what were trying to do,” Mueller said. “We have a year under us and things are clicking. We played a lot of young guys so its experience and experience in the system.”
Fenwick has plenty of players standing out early, highlighted perhaps by quarterback Jude Hooks, a college prospect at wide receiver who switched positions in Week 10 last year, and defensive lineman Kale Shaffer, who had a forced fumble in a 45-0 win over Madison and a strong leader for the defense.
Mueller said overall the group just looks stronger, though. He’s brought his “Finish Manual” he created – inspired by Jim Tressel’s “Winners’ Manual” – when he was at New Albany, and that continues to be a focus with the themes of faith and family, initiative, nobility, sacrifice and humility.
The humility aspect of that is especially important going into this week on the high of the blowout win last week against Madison and going into a team that might seem down after losing 26 seniors from a state championship squad.
“It’s a playoff team that is 0-2 and hasn’t lost three in a row in probably 15 years,” Mueller said. “They’re a normal Clinton Massie team, just not off to a typical start. Like I said, we what we needed the first two games, but we just need to get better each day and prepare for a good Clinton Massie team.”
Picking up where they left off
Monroe also is off to a 2-0 start with wins over Talawanda and Ross, heading into Friday’s game at Western Brown.
The Hornets had lost to Ross last year and rebounded with a 66-58 victory over Western Brown the following week to spark a six-game winning streak. They went on to claim a share of their first Southwestern Buckeye League division title since 2009.
Badin, Fairfield and Lakota West are the other undefeated area teams that finished the 2021 season strong and are off to strong starts this year.
The Rams (2-0), who were state runners up last year, travel to Withrow after collecting a notable win over Columbus’ St. Francis DeSales. Fairfield (2-0), coming off a 42-14 win over Middletown, plays at Colerain (0-2) on Friday and West (2-0), which routed Lakota East 49-6, hosts Sycamore (0-2). That game originally was scheduled to take place at Sycamore, but the schools agreed to swap and give the Aves an extra home game next year.
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