Jordan Aikins freely admits that Thursday night’s regular-season finale against Douglas will be an emotional time for a couple of reasons.
Depending on the result, it could be the last time Aikins will wear the blue and white on his home field, and it is for sure the last time he will ever play football.
“I hope we destroy Douglas so we get to play one more home game,” Aikins said last week. “It would be a great way to end our (regular) season.
“We’ve had some big injuries, and we haven’t been able to show what we are capable of doing all the time.”
Count Aikins on the list of Carson players, who has suffered injuries this season. Fortunately his wasn’t season ending like the ones suffered by Greg Wallace and Jace Keema, two important offensive starters.
Aikins dislocated his shoulder wrestling on the beach with wrestling teammate Jarod Butler. As a result, his shoulder from time-to-time will pop out and have to be put back in place as was the case at the Damonte Ranch game.
“It came out again during practice and I missed that first game (against Desert Mountain),” Aikins said. “I played half the Reno game. I can play with it, it just comes out very once in a while. I’m going to have surgery after the season.
“The game at Damonte Ranch, I could have gone back in. Richie Romero came in, though, and did a good job. The bye week is good (for me). I wasn’t going to miss the Douglas game for anything.”
Aikins, despite the injury, has racked up 45 tackles. Pretty impressive for a guy not playing at 100 percent. He has earned the respect of coach Blair Roman.
“He has played a lot of football for us,” Roman said. “He is one of the toughest kids I’ve ever had. He is a lot of fun to be around.”
The 5-10 175-pound Aikins started the season at middle linebacker, as the Senators experimented with the bigger Justin Tschetter at outside linebacker. The two eventually switched spots before Tschetter suffered ligament damage to his knee on the second series of the Damonte Ranch.
“We initially made that move to improve our blitz package,” Roman said. “After the first game, we decided we were better with Justin in the middle and the physical aspect of what he brings to the defense.”
“I like the middle better,” Aikins admitted. “I’ll always do whatever is best for the team. I think it’s easier to read (the play) over the top of the offensive linemen.”
“Except for Justin, we’re all pretty small. That hasn’t stopped us in the past.”
Aikins, Dawson Lamb and Romero are all between 160 and 170 pounds, but the trio plays extremely hard and with a lot of aggressiveness, and that makes up for lack of size sometimes. Even in high school football, a lot of middle linebackers are between 180 and 200 pounds.
Aikins is unsure of his immediate feature. He does want to be a pilot, however, which means going straight into the military or going to college and getting a degree. He said he could see himself eventually flying for an airline.