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YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – Having just seven games on the football season schedule leaves little margin for error, especially when games with division title-game berth implications come along early in the season.

Four teams each in Divisions I and II face games with such import this weekend. Defending champion Daegu hosts Humphreys and Matthew C. Perry travels to Yokota in the D-II slate, while Kadena visits Nile C. Kinnick and Seoul American plays its first-ever game at American School In Japan in the D-I docket.

“It’s very different,” Perry coach Frank Macias said of the DODDS schedule, compared to the States, where as many as the first five games of any team’s season can be non-league affairs, “then you find your team and take on the league schedule.”

In the DODDS season, there’s no such prep time for the league slate. “Every week, you have to get better,” Macias said. “Everything comes very fast.”

The Samurai will play the first of two games against Yokota at 7 p.m. Friday, the first time they’ve played since the 2003 season. The two didn’t play last season since Yokota was still a D-I team and the Samurai D-II.

Perry hosted the D-II title game last year, losing 60-50 to Daegu, but entered the 2015 campaign with a youngish line, which Macias said could be a problem against the veteran Panthers.

“It’s definitely something we’ve been trying to work on in the early stages to see where we are,” Macias said of the Samurai’s line. “Friday night should be a good measuring stick.”

Perry opened the season by blanking Sotoku, a Japanese team, 42-0, while Yokota came away with a 56-24 win at Robert D. Edgren last Friday.

Daegu enters its game with Humphreys – which split the season series last year – without a game in hand; their home game against Seoul American was called off last week when the referees failed to show. The Blackhawks won their opener 56-6 at Osan.

“It would have been better if we had the game against Seoul, we would have been battle tested,” said first-year Warriors coach Phillip Loyd. “Better late than never. This is the time.”

The Seoul at Daegu game will likely be made up on Oct. 9, DODDS Pacific athletics coordinator Don Hobbs said. Seoul’s home game against Humphreys, originally scheduled for Oct. 9, will likely be moved to Oct. 30, he said.

Kadena, the reigning D-I champion, already has one D-I loss, 36-6 against Kubasaki last Friday, so Saturday’s game at Kinnick becomes a must-win situation for the Panthers. Both they and the Red Devils are getting by without their star running backs of last season, Justin Sego and Dre Paylor.

While the Falcons are taking on ASIJ for the first time, Seoul American coach Jim Davis is no stranger to Mustang Valley, having played and coached against the Mustangs while attending Kinnick (class of 1989) and as a Red Devils assistant in the mid-2000s.

“It will be kind of a little eerie; it’s been awhile. I’m looking forward to it,” Davis said.

Friday’s Edgren at Zama was postponed due to flooding in Tochigi and Ibaraki Prefectures.

Rain, which has fallen steadily the last three weeks and made worse the last couple of days by Tropical Storm Etau, closed sections of the Tohoku Expressway, which DODDS Japan teams such as Edgren and Zama use to travel between Misawa Air Base and Tokyo.

In addition, Kinnick’s volleyball and tennis road trips to Edgren were also postponed, Hobbs said. Edgren’s cross-country team’s trip to a Kanto Plain meet in Tokyo has been canceled, he said.

A makeup date for the Edgren-Zama football game, which could have Division II title-game berth implications, has not been determined, Hobbs said.

The two teams are slated to meet again on Oct. 2 at Misawa.

DODDS officials will also look into possible makeup dates for the tennis and volleyball trips, Hobbs said. Should they not be made up, it would leave Edgren with one home weekend per sport, according to the DODDS Japan master schedule.

ornauer.dave@stripes.com

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Dave Ornauer has been employed by or assigned to Stars and Stripes Pacific almost continuously since March 5, 1981. He covers interservice and high school sports at DODEA-Pacific schools and manages the Pacific Storm Tracker.

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