Missteps cost the Northview Chiefs varsity a chance to win their spring game Thursday night against a defending district champion of FHSAA Class 5A, while the junior varsity fought their way to a tie.

The Chiefs varsity squad went into the game seeing where they stood moving into the summer, but came up short against the Jaguars 14-6 in the first of the spring game at Northview High School.

Mistakes were a credit to the loss when Chiefs Head Coach Sid Wheatley spoke after the game.

“We didn’t take care of our assignments,” he said. “We had a couple of guys going the wrong way, so it costed us a chance to score late in the game. We need to be more physical up front offensively and defensively.”

The second half of the contest pitted the junior varsity squads in a fight with the Chiefs taking an early 14-0 lead, but the Jaguars fought back with two touchdowns in the second quarter of the contest, which created a stalemate neither team could break.

The result of the junior varsity match up left Wheatley satisfied with what he saw.

“I thought our junior varsity kids played real hard,” he said. “We had some guys step and break some runs for us. If we hadn’t had a couple of turnovers late in the game, we could have been in a place to win, but they played hard.”

Now with spring behind them, the focus will turn to improvement during the summer months.

Finding ways to get better will begin with the players desire and work ethic, Wheatley said.

“Work hard,” he said. “We are going to stay in that weight room, work on our conditioning and have each individual become a better football player. This summer is going to make our team a better football team.”

The outlook on how the program will fare this fall and in coming years is looking positive, Wheatley said.

“I feel good about the future,” he said. “We are going to go back and watch some film, find our mistakes and come out of it a better because of it. The mistakes have to be corrected because they will cost you, especially against a good football team like we played. That’s a defending Class 5A District champ, so we will be better because of this game.”