After a 41-6 loss to Robinson to start the season, Charleston High School (0-1) travels to Paris (1-0) tonight to face another former Apollo Conference opponent. 

Head coach Brian Halsey said the focus this week has been on correcting mistakes and keeping the team’s energy positive despite the tough start. 

“I think our experienced players that came back realized that we’re better than that,” Halsey said. “And they showed their maturity and did a great job leading. Nobody got rattled. It’s just there’s a lot of teaching, a lot of correcting, and sooner or later those light bulbs are going to come on.” 

Charleston junior quarterback Wyatt Gordon threw three interceptions in his debut, but Halsey said the responsibility did not fall solely on him.  

“He made a lot of throws off his back foot,” Halsey said. “Part of that was because we didn’t do our job up front and silly day-one scheme stuff that our offensive line didn’t do that put him in a bad situation.” 

With Gordon now having a game under his belt, Halsey said the goal is to see steady improvement from him and everyone else on the team. 

“We want to play better,” Halsey said. “That’s one thing that we always emphasize as a program. We’re going to get better every day, every week, at something. And we want to see that the mistakes that we made last week are minimized and improvements there. And then certainly, we want to put ourselves in position to win.” 

Paris, like many of the teams in the Apollo Conference, runs a physical, ground-heavy offense. 

Defensive coordinator Ken Ratliff said that the Trojans have emphasized being more physical and more disciplined up front. 

“We’re a young team, but we got to play more physical,” Ratliff said. “Paris likes to run the ball, so we got to make sure that we’re physical and try to get that stopped.” 

Part of Charleston’s defensive preparation this week included working on counter plays and run fits. 

“Paris and some of our other competition are going to run counters and they [Charleston’s defense] got to do certain things,” Ratliff said. “We got to make sure that we’re wrong-arming and trying to blow up those counters, making sure we’re taking care of the pullers and try to spill that to the outside as much as we can. That’ll go for Friday night and on through the Apollo as much as we can.” 

Ratliff said keeping the Trojans confident and focused has been key. 

“We’ve been trying to talk to them short memories,” Ratliff said. “You can’t change what’s already happened. You can’t change what’s happened in the past. You can only change what’s going to happen in the future. So we’ve been very understanding of the kids and trying to get them to understand their rules and making sure that those get handled and then just get out there and have fun.” 

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Paris High School tonight. 

Bryce Parker can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].