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South Tahoe football stays positive, hosts Fallon Friday night

South Tahoe head coach Louis Franklin chats with his team Wednesday night following practice.
Bill Rozak / Tahoe Daily Tribune

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Just seconds after South Tahoe’s soccer team finished its game Wednesday night, the Vikings football stormed onto the field for practice.

They were loud, energetic and ready to get after each other.

The excited atmosphere resembled a team vying for a league title, not seeking its first win, a credit to the players and coaching staff.



“This season is not going as we wished, but it’s been a good experience,” said sophomore quarterback Jake Tarwater. “I feel like as a team we’ve grown a lot. The older guys have helped the younger guys and our team spirit is getting better. We’re all trying to practice our best so we can get a chance at winning a game. Last week was frustrating.”

South Tahoe head coach Louis Franklin has noticed a difference in his team since the calendar turned to September.



“The last two weeks we’ve had some really good practices and we’ve noticed that correlates to how we’re performing on the field,” said Vikings head coach Louis Franklin. “It’s getting the young guys reps and they’re not as young anymore, they’re seeing varsity football and it’s slowing down for them. And it’s also the confidence of knowing what you’re doing.”

The Vikings welcome Churchill County to the South Shore this Friday night to start the second half of the season. The Greenwave, from Fallon, Nevada, are co-leaders in the 3A Northern League (4-0) with Elko.

It will be a tall task for the Vikings to pull the upset, but anything is possible, especially if the Vikings hold onto the ball. And that’s been easier to say than to do.

South Tahoe had every chance to beat the Fernley Vaqueros last week, but suffered untimely turnovers and a couple of plays that changed a could-be victory into an 18-6 loss.

“It’s a great measuring stick for us,” Franklin said. “We played them really tough last week and we expect to play these guys really tough. We play Fallon tough every year so we expect nothing different Friday night. We want to keep it tight and make it uncomfortable for them and hopefully this week we make that team beat us rather than giving it away like we did last week.

“The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win,” Franklin added. “Unfortunately, this year, we’ve been making a lot of mistakes. We’ll be glad to tip our caps to a team that is better than us, but at this point in the season we haven’t put ourselves in the best position to win games and its mostly been us and not the opposition.”

South Tahoe has scored just 38 points so far this season

“Offensively Friday we have to drive the ball down the field and not turn the ball over,” Tarwater said. “We really need to get a run game going and that would open up the passing game.”

The Vikings (0-5, 0-4 Northern League) will host two more games after Fallon. They will hit the road for two weeks and come back Oct. 12 to play Dayton (0-5, 0-4 Northern) for homecoming and finish the season by hosting rival Truckee (4-1, 3-1 Northern).


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