The Northwest Christian Crusaders (1-1) look to bounce back from a tough loss against Yuma Catholic in their second game of the season.

The team’s game against Yuma Catholic ended by a score of 36-30 and went down to the last minute of the game.

David Inness, head coach of Northwest Christian, said despite the tough loss his players have great short-term memories and they quickly move onto improving and focusing on their next opponent.

“Our guys just normally do it, we talked about our mistakes and watched a lot of film the other day,” he said. “They are ready to go, we do not ever dwell on it. We move to the next one.”

They will be traveling to Queen Creek this Friday to take on the Benjamin Franklin Chargers (2-1). Northwest Christian is coming off of a bye week and this upcoming matchup will be the first between the two schools.

Inness said Benjamin Franklin High School is a new school and they enjoy traveling and playing new teams.

“They are a new school, they are a good team that went to the semi-finals last year,” he said. “We love traveling, with our league we play on the road a lot.”

The Chargers run the ball a lot more than other football teams. In their first game of the season, they rushed for a total of 441 yards and scored eight rushing touchdowns.

Inness said the key to winning is simply to stop their running game and get their offense off of the field.

“They are a running team and that is what they do, it was what they do best,” he said. “The key to playing them is that we got to get stops and if you get stops it gets them off the field.”

Dustin Inness, a senior who plays both sides of the ball, said every position will have to step up to make tackles and they will also try to mix sets and formations to keep the offense guessing.

"We just know linebackers and safeties really have to step up to make tackles because their offense is so funky,” he said. “We are going to run a few different formations at them to just try and confuse their line.”

Inness said preparing for a team they have never faced before is hard but the bye week has given the coaches an opportunity to help the players.

“It is different because no one else really runs that offense but it is nice to have that extra week to prepare,” he said. “But our coaches work hard and we watch film during lunch and over the weekend, our coaches do a good job in getting us prepared to see all different kinds of stuff.”

He said they enjoyed the bye week but are looking forward to getting back onto the field this Friday and that the team is a close-knit group of upperclassman that feel they can accomplish a lot this season.

“We like to play and it was nice because the Yuma game was so physical so it was nice to get a week off,” he said. “Our team is pretty close this year so we are just looking forward to playing each game like it's our last and enjoying it while we can.”