Both the Fort Loramie Redskins and the Anna Rockets take on undefeated teams Friday night in a quest for their first victories of the season.

The Redskins play at home for the second week in a row and welcome Division 6 Bluffton to town.

The Rockets, meanwhile, are on the road for the second week in a row, opening Midwest Athletic Conference play at Fort Recovery Friday night.

Fort Loramie

Coach Whit Parks’ team hasn’t generated a lot of offense yet in losses to Fort Recovery and Minster, but he’s not at all unhappy with his team.

“Effort hasn’t been an issue,” he said. “Not a problem at all. We’ve just been outmanned by two very good teams. We’re not going to make excuses or anything like that. But we’ll get better. We’ve really hurt ourselves a lot, so I’d like to see more discipline. Big penalties and turnovers have hurt us early and opened the floodgates. And our second quarters have been horrendous.

“But we’re not pushing the panic button and making a lot of changes. We have the right guys in the right place,” he added.

The Redskins take on Bluffton, a D-6 team that comes town town following wins over Van Buren and Cory Rawson, two teams that are both winless after two weeks. It’s a good opportunity to pick up computer points for the Redskins.

“They’re 2-0, and they’ve scored a lot of points (89),” said Parks. “They’re a talented team, but they haven’t played the schedule we have. They run a diversified offense, and have an outstanding quarterback, who is both a runner and a thrower.

“We just have to cut down on our own mistakes,” he added.

Anna

The Rockets were shut out last week at Brookville, which used a 400-plus yard ground game to win 21-0 Saturday afternoon, following Friday’s rainout.

“We couldn’t finish drives,” said Anna coach Nick Marino. “That was the big difference. We get down there, then make a mistake. We looked a little better up front, but we’re not quite over the hump yet.”

The Rockets face a strong challenge to open MAC play, traveling to 2-0 Fort Recovery. The Rockets will be defending the county — Recovery’s two wins so far have come over Lehman and Fort Loramie by a combined score of 70-6.

“Fort Recovery is a good football team with a nice running game, a couple of nice receivers, and good-looking corners and safeties,” said Marino. “They’re going to be a spread team. We run similar stuff, so it’s that kind of a matchup.”

Marino wants to see some explosiveness out of his team.

“Getting the running game to develop is the most imnportant thing,” he said. “Not just getting the big plays, but big explosive plays and big gainers. We can grind it out, but we have to find a way to be a little more explosive.”