This past Friday, Mason took on Warren County at home for George Mason’s annual Homecoming Game. Everyone saw the outcome: Mason lost 23-13 with two touchdowns from Dustin Green.

But what exactly goes into a game, win or loss? How does each player prepare?

“We just have to prepare like every week,” head coach Tony Green said.

Preparing every week entails different things for different people. Between quarterbacks, running backs, defensive backs, and linemen, everyone had something to work on.

“The offensive line has their work cut out for them this week,” Coach Green said.

Junior Craig Hagigh, a currently-injured offensive lineman agreed.

“We always practice…blocking techniques in team offense practice. [This week,] we gave the passing and running game good blocking,” Hagigh said.

Junior quarterback Thomas Creed thought the biggest key for him was to spread the ball out.

“We’ve put in a few new sets this week to spread it around to all our receivers, guys like Yoder, Enzo, and obviously Dustin,” Creed said.

On the defensive side of things, the defensive backs practiced one on ones and ball reads to stop Warren’s best player, quarterback Cam Ford and his read option.

“We handled the option well, but their passing game hurt us,” junior defensive back Jack Gilligan said.

Senior running back, Dustin Green, had both of Mason’s touchdowns, and attributes them to reading the blocks and making defenders miss when given space.

“[This doesn’t come from a week’s work, but] from a lot of reps in practice throughout the year,” Dustin Green said.

So what went wrong during the game? Dustin Green believes it was not many little mistakes throughout the game, but two big ones in the first half. These included a low snap to the punter and a dropped kickoff return.

“In the second half we did a good job…there just wasn’t enough time left [to make up for the first half mistakes]” said Dustin Green.

“We made some team mistakes that we will work on this week, we will continue to prepare like we have been all season,” Coach Green said. “The team has worked very hard all year and I see no reason why they won’t continue to do that.”

With two games left in the season, Coach Green and the Mustangs will continue to go hard in practice and hope to see some wins. Mason plays Madison this coming Friday, and Central Woodstock for senior night on November 4.