Patriots in Must-Win Situation for Homecoming Game

Wootton Patriots head coach Eddie Tolliver tries not to pay much attention to the standings. He leaves that to his assistants, he says. But following a 28-7 loss at Bethesda Chevy-Chase last week, Tolliver's team is running out of time in the 2011 season.

Beginning with tonight's game against Watkins Mill, the Patriots need to win out their final three games (WM, Churchill, and Gaithersburg) or win two of three and get some help from other teams in the county.

To have any chance to advance, Wootton needs its quarterback to rebound from his worst game of the season.

Tolliver pulled his starter, Chris Papadopoulos, for the first time this season after throwing two first half interceptions against B-CC. Papadopoulos later re-entered the game, marching the Patriots down the field for their only score.

"[Chris] had a couple series where he in my mind looked terrible," Tolliver said. "He was out of rhythm, out of shape, so we were trying to find a rhythm by putting in the backup, and he just wasn’t up to task either so I [put Chris back in]."

Papadopoulos will start for Wootton in tonight’s homecoming game.

Despite the added excitement and pressure Tolliver’s focus is basic fundamentals for his team. After introducing Watkins Mill’s offensive and defensive schemes, he spent most of this week trying to fix mistakes that have crept into the Patriots’ games.

“The biggest thing that was wrong with B-CC was we started the game awful offensively,” Tolliver said. “That right there, we have to work on being focused within ourselves. After that, we turned into the interception machine, which put our defense in bad positions because of interceptions and where they returned the ball to.

“Defensively, I think we’re fine schematically but we’re catching instead of attacking. Those are things we’ve worked on this week in practice, being the aggressor, not waiting on things to happen but making things happen.”