Player Perspectives: Zach Baldacci

This edition of player perspectives features senior captain Zach Baldacci. Zach has started at left tackle the last two years for the Cardinals and made the switch from the defensive to the offensive line prior to his junior season. In his piece, Zach discusses the season thus far, how the Cardinals prepared for Millikin this weekend and what he and the team hopes to achieve the rest of the season. Zach, a native of Tinley Park, is a 2006 graduate of Andrew High School.

The season didn’t start exactly perfect for us. We lost our opening game of the season to a good Ohio Northern team that we felt like we should have beat. That was definitely a tough loss to swallow, but, it doesn’t mean we can’t achieve the goals we have set as a team for this season. I think as a team we learned our lessons from that game and have been better since. We gained back confidence the next two games with wins over Benedictine University and Olivet College. It was nice to get these wins at home for our fans. This upcoming weekend we start our conference play with Millikin University and we are all looking forward to this part of the season. This is what the team has worked so hard for on a daily basis through the whole off-season. Millikin will definitely be a great challenge for us as our first conference opponent. They are a tough team that plays hard. It is a game that we like because a physical game is our style of play and it will take a total team effort to get the victory. This week of preparation for Millikin went very well. Both sides of the football have put a lot of time in the film room to look at the strengths and weaknesses of this team and have transferred the knowledge to the field. I also think our scout team guys have been doing an awesome job simulating Millikin’s offense and defense all week. We had three good practices this week and are very much ready to start our CCIW conference schedule.

Our most important goal right now is to win the CCIW for the fourth year in a row. The CCIW is a very strong conference and it will not be an easy task for us. Most of our road games in the conference this year will be long distance. We will see how the team handles the heavy traveling. I don’t think it will be much of a problem as we play pretty well on the road. Another important factor is for us to stay healthy. We have absorbed some pretty big blows on the defensive side of the ball with Matt Wenger and Derek Sulo being out. I feel confident in the younger guys stepping up and believe we won’t have a problem playing at a high level for the rest of the year.

I would like to say thanks to all of our fans coming out so far to our first two home games and we will need your support throughout conference play. We look forward to seeing you out there for the rest of the year. GO CARDS!