The Old Rochester Regional High School football team has started preparing for one of its biggest games of the season – the home-opener against rival Wareham.

“We’re really excited for that,” head coach Justin Kogler said. “It’s a fun game. They have a new coach, so they’ll definitely be ready to go.”

This is Kogler’s second season as ORR’s coach, and he thinks the familiarity with his coaching style and his system will help the team.

“They understand the plays more, and they understand my style of coaching and our expectations a little bit better,” he said.

Seniors Grant Reuter and Cam Hamilton also feel that Kogler has a way of connecting with the players that helps make the team stronger.

“He communicates really well. I think that’s one of his strongest skills,” Hamilton said, a team captain.

While the players appreciate his communication skills, Kogler himself sums up his coaching style with ease: Work hard.

“I expect kids to work as hard as they can all the time, and as long as they do that I’m really happy,” he said. “If they just kind of go through the motions and not give their all, that’s when I get disappointed.”

And Kogler has kept the team working hard through the first week of practice. The team could only wear helmets for the first three days, so Kogler focused on conditioning.

“We’re not allowed to have contact with anything really. We can’t do any hitting on the first three days, so the focus has been on the mental part and the very, very basic fundamentals,” he said.

Now that the helmets are on and the team can work on hitting, Reuter and Hamilton said they’re using that upcoming Wareham game as motivation to hit hard in practice and get the underclassmen ready to go.

“We’ve been trying to get everyone pumped up,” Reuter said.

The team went 5-1 down the stretch last year after a rough start to the season, and Hamilton hopes they can pick up where they left off.

“We want to start strong and hopefully have a good end of the year, too,” he said.

But before they start worrying about the end of the season, Reuter and Hamilton said the team is completely focused on its Sept. 9 opener against Wareham.

“We kind of don’t like them,” Reuter said.