Hilldale has been hit by a double whammy this season.

A small senior class, down to six players after the season-ending injury to fullback/linebacker Ty Smallwood has combined with sophomores and juniors trying to fill in spots without much playing experience to hand the Hornets an 0-4 start in 2008, including last week’s 31-14 loss to Poteau.

“If this was a normal season and we were 0-4, I would say that in a week or two, we’re going to start playing a lot of the young kids to get ready for next season,” coach Don Hendrix said. “We’re already doing that. We’re trying to make the best of every week.”

Hendrix uses sophomore Levi Hamlin as an example.

“He started the whole game (against Poteau last Friday) at fullback,” the Hilldale coach said. “He should be getting spot time, if any. He would be playing junior varsity on Monday and spot situations on Friday.”

Hendrix, though, isn’t about to give up on this season, whose opponents so far have a combined 14-2 mark. But the schedule only gets tougher with Friday’s homecoming game against Broken Bow, ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press Class 4A poll.

“We’re going through a lot of growing pains and it’s going to be discouraging for these young kids,” he said. “I looked out there at our team (last Friday) and we had a sophomore at fullback, left guard and left tackle. That’s pretty hard at a 4A school to have that many sophomores on the field that weren’t your starters when you started four weeks ago.”

Someone tried to offer a word of encouragement to Hendrix recently as they made an observation of his ballclub. Hendrix said they complimented the team’s speed.

“But,” the coach said, “when you have a 195-pound kid hitting on your 145- or 160-pound kids, speed doesn’t come into play at that point.”

Zack Wallace, who graduated last spring and nursing a back injury after starting the first two games at University of Tulsa, came by this week and offered Hendrix some insight.

“He came by the other day to talk to me about his injury and our season and he said, ‘You know, coach, you’ve got to remember, a lot of juniors and sophomores didn’t get a lot of playing time because there were so many seniors the last couple of years,’” Hendrix said.

“We’re a team that’s going to have to fight for everything we get. People are shutting the door on us and I don’t know if we can come back, but we’re going to try.”

The Hornets are going to have to try really hard to upend Broken Bow. The Savages, led by sophomore quarterback Peyton Werner, are coming off a 28-27 double-overtime win against Salllisaw last week to stay unbeaten after four games this season.