Cleveland  has now suffered two major injuries in the 2015 campaign. About a month after Nathan Tsai, the starting running back was taken off the field because of his ACL injury, Jake Cashion, the starting quarterback, suffered a shoulder injury during the second half of the Cleveland-Jefferson game on Oct. 2.

The Warriors lost 26-0 to Grant with Cashion still in the starting lineup, lost 62-0 against Jefferson with Cashion out part of the second half, and lost 46-0 to Lincoln with him completely out of the starting lineup.

At this point in the season the games are getting tougher than ever. It’s not often that a team can easily recover from injuries to their starting quarterback and running back, if most teams can recover at all. Injuries put an astronomical amount of pressure on the second and third string, pressuring the team to fill in the holes in the offense. The load put onto the team is massive, and it would be a miracle if the team could pull out a victory against harsher competition.

Speaking of the team’s record, the Wilson Trojans were recently disqualified after the game on Sept. 18. The Trojans illegally used a junior varsity player in their lineup in the fourth quarter and the team had to forfeit their win.  The forfeit officially gives the Warriors a 1-5 record. The win isn’t much cause for celebration, but the win is indeed the first of the season, and it was against the Trojans who currently hold a 3-2 win and loss record, the best thus far out of all the foes faced by the Warriors.

We asked one of the team’s best defensive linemen and offensive linemen, Daniel McIlveen, how he thought the team could find more success on the field even with the devastating injuries. “Honestly, we just need to work together as a team and our second and third string players need to work harder to fill in these positions that we are missing. I think that if we all come together as a team, then we can finish this season on a high note,” McIlveen said.

Coach Harris was also questioned on the matter of the team’s recovery. In his response he said, “Honestly it’s a tough question to answer. I think that our team would definitely benefit from more depth. We’d like to have more players with extensive football experience on our roster. As of now, most of our players with a lot of experience are playing both ways, on offense of defense, and it really wears them out. We have three levels of players for the first time in seven years, but there’s not a lot of football experience in our lower levels compared to other schools. This makes it really tough to replace these players. It’s tough, it’s really tough.”

The Warriors will effectively be the underdog from here on out in the season, and the team needs to embrace the challenge of being the underdog in order to make this injury-ridden season a success.