Until Brandon Real suffered a broken collarbone two weeks ago, West York rarely had its skill players racking up major playing time on both offense and defense.
Corey Harris would take some carries here and there and snag some receptions, but most of his playing time would be at cornerback. Blaine Fissel and Dan Gay have caught several passes this season, but no one in the West York receiving corps has even half the number of catches as leading receiver Nate Jacobs. Neither Jacobs nor quarterback Alex George ever played on the other side of the ball, and early in the season the decision was made to keep Real exclusively on offense.
When Real went down, that changed. Now the West York coaching staff has to strike a balance between Harris and Fissel at running back, staying with the more effective runner but still keeping both of them fresh enough to play stellar defense.
"Defensively, we didn't want to take either of them off the field," West York coach Ron Miller said. "As coaches, we saw that Corey was looking a little winded so we gave it to Fissel. Then Fiss was getting a little winded and we just kept going back and forth and that's the way we're going to go about it this week too."
Last week, Harris finished with 25 carries and Fissel had 15. Harris took most of his carries in the first half, while the bulk of Fissel's action came during the last two quarters. If you're going to be at Altoona watching the game, keep an eye on both players for signs of fatigue. That could spell trouble for the Bulldogs. But last week the West York coaching staff seemed to strike the perfect balance and they should be able to do it again this week against Thomas Jefferson.
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