Football Section 2014

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Sometimes, you can go home again.

Burroughs was once a member of the Mojave River League but left in 2000 to help form the Desert Sky League.

Now the Bur-ros are back again. Their addi-tion to the MRL — which was approved more than a year ago — means that the league now has six teams, which guarantees three spots in the CIF-Southern Section Eastern Division playoffs. Last year the super competitive MRL placed four teams into the playoffs with Serrano and Oak Hills earning the automatic spots and Apple Valley and Hespe-ria each earning at-large bids.

The Burros have made the playoffs each of the last seven seasons.

“They are always good,” Serrano coach Ray Maholchic said of the Burros. “They are good at everything. It throws another team into the mix. Overall, it’s been a dog fight the last three years with Apple and Oak Hills and Hesperia. The league overall is getting stronger and stronger. With Burroughs in there it makes it that much stronger.”

So where does the addition leave the MRL? The expectation going into the season is certain-

ly for Serrano and Oak Hills to be the top teams. Serrano has won the league title five straight years.

Can the Bull-dogs finally top the Diamond-backs? The two teams had their closest battle yet last season with Serrano pulling out a 17-14 vic-tory. The result arguably could have been much different had Oak

Hills star running back DeZhontaey Fletcher not broken his ankle on the first play of the game.

Both teams return several key skill players but lost major pieces on defense. On paper the gap between the two has per-haps never been closer, if there is a gap at all. But there’s a reason Serrano has won 13 MRL titles in the league’s 18 years of existence. There have been close calls along the way, but the Diamond-backs almost always find a way to prevail.

Several Serrano play-ers called Oak Hills a rival and a game they look for-ward to while others said it’s just another contest on the schedule.

“Really, when we’re here we don’t even con-versate about Oak Hills,” Serrano senior running back Geordan King said. “Everyone considers them a rival, but they are not a rival in our eyes. We just lace up and play the game. It doesn’t matter if

it’s Oak Hills or any other team. For us, we have the same goal.”

The battle for third place and the automatic playoff berth is riddled with question marks. There are holes that need to be filled on the next four teams — only Sul-tana returns a starting quarterback and none of the teams returns a start-ing running back.

Burroughs and Apple Valley have almost always found ways to be competi-tive. Apple Valley head coach Frank Pulice keeps a list of the Sun Devils’ yearly records on the wall in his office. He’s quick to point out this year marks the 30th anniversary of

the last time they cap-tured a league title. He’d like nothing more than to remove the stigma of being the MRL’s third wheel — always competi-tive, never the champs.

More question marks surround the league’s other Hesperia teams. Hesperia is coming off its best season in years but lost most of the core of that squad and will have to abandon its no-huddle offense due to depth issues. Meanwhile, Sul-tana struggled last year in its first season under head coach David Booth Sr.


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Apple Valley is confident after tough playoff

defeat

Losses at the end of the season are meant to be heartbreaking.

And while Apple Valley took little joy in its 24-20 loss to Citrus Hill in the quarterfinals of the CIF-Southern Section Eastern Division playoffs last year, the loss has served as a galvanizing force through the offseason.

“We were sad obviously, but we were excited because it showed our capabilities,” senior Joseph Palafox said. “We’ve built on it.”

The Sun Devils weren’t sup-posed to compete with the Hawks, who went on to win their second straight Eastern Division title. Apple Valley was already battered heading into the game and was down to its fifth- and sixth-string running backs by the end of the first quarter.

Yet they didn’t trail until the last five minutes of the game and had chances to put more points on the board.

“They really have carried on that last game, the excitement of the last game,” head coach Frank Pulice said. “They’ve carried that thing all the way through the off-season into now. That will go a long way. You’ve got that kind of faith and belief in each other, that stuff will take you a long way when you lack experience.”

And experience is certainly one of the things the Sun Dev-ils lack. Pulice, who’s been the head coach since 2000, said this was one of the program’s weak-est offseasons in terms of return-ers. They lost eight starters from a defense that allowed just

13.25 points per game and return only seven starters overall.

After several years of run-ning the spread offense, the Sun Devils are back to an I forma-tion, power game. While just two starters remain from last year’s offensive line, it’s a bigger unit built for a running game.

“Pretty much everyone that returned either started or saw plenty of reps during a varsity game last year,” senior left tackle Joey Bingham said of the offen-sive line. Bingham is one of the returning starters on the line along with Mason Emlay. “We’ll

pound the ball, but we won’t be afraid to open it up if we have to.”

Running backs Ejon Mannil and Greg Sprague both return after jumping into the fire dur-ing the Citrus Hill game. The senior and junior backs had com-bined for six carries going into that game but managed to com-bine for 120 yards on 25 carries against the Hawks.

Senior Nick Schulze takes over for graduated two-year starter Justin Connors at quarterback. Schulze was a receiver and special teams player last year as well as the backup quarterback.

“Nick is very athletic,” Pulice said. “He’s extremely competi-tive, a great leader. He loves to be physical. Everything you want in

an option quarterback.”On defense the Sun Devils

will use the same 3-5-3 forma-tion that’s become a standard for them. Mason Kelly — who racked up 131 tackles his senior year and set the program marks in career tackles and sacks — graduated, but players say they will be no less hard hitting. Tristian McNatt and Brandon Knox will be among the players called on to the fill the hole at linebacker.

“Mason’s not here so every-one else gets to tackle this time,” senior defensive end Elu Leasau said. “I have no worries (about the defense).”

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25 years, 15 as a head coach.

My expecta-tions are high. We’ve got a good group of kids, and a physical group. We have successful JV players and players with varsity experi-ence as well.

: We are disci-plined, but like to help well-rounded students be good people in life. If winning games is a part of that, we’re

in the bonus round.

I was playing foot-ball in junior college and I was asked to come back and help my coach, who was a mentor, with his wrestling program. I enjoyed the coaching and two years after junior college, I got to coach football and realized I could coach and teach and follow in his footsteps. I wanted to have an impact on my kids.

I love seeing kids benefit and succeed. When they succeed, whether it be winning a game, on a play, in the classroom or overcom-ing obstacles, that’s when I get the most out of coaching

Covina High School, Cer-ritos JC, then walked on at San Diego State as a line-backer and got my teaching credential.

Covina High and Pat-rick Henry High School in San Diego

Linebacker

Matt Rohrbaugh (defensive coordinator), Robert Meras (offensive coordinator), Larry Friday (defensive backs), TJ Carpi-no (offensive and defensive lines), Jeremy Justice (tight ends and linebackers) and Anthony Morales (offensive and defensive lines).

San Diego State and the San Diego Chargers

After 25 years, there have been far too many to say one — plenty of kids playing D1, when our team was sixth in CIF with a 3.15 GPA, having coached 10 straight years with above a 3.0 GPA.

I’ve had a lot of coach-ing influences. I draw from many of them. Nothing else would be possible without Marc Haygood.

Anything involving hang-ing out with my family and friends.

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Burroughs moves from DSL to MRL

this season

The Burroughs football team left some pretty cushy surround-ings in the Desert Sky League.

The Burros move back to the Mojave River League this season for the first time since 1999. They didn’t outright dominate the DSL in recent years — although they had a stretch in the mid-2000s when they lost just one league game in three seasons and claimed a Division VIII title — but they were almost always more than just competitive. The went 41-16 in their 14 seasons in the league and finished below .500 in league play just once. Twice they posted 4-0 records.

Burroughs head coach Todd Mather knows it’s going to be a bit of challenge, but one that he’s looking forward to.

“I like to play the better teams to challenge our kids and chal-lenge our staff,” Mather said. “We know we have our work cut out for us.”

The Burros have made the playoffs each of the last seven seasons and have advanced to the second round in three of the last four seasons. But that was in a Desert Sky League that has been much more wide open than the Mojave River League in recent seasons. Claiming a playoff spot, even with three guaranteed to the league, isn’t a certainty.

“I expect it to be tough for us,” Mather said. “We may have some growing pains as we get used to the different style offenses that they run.”

Mather said he and his coach-ing staff already started break-ing down film of the MRL teams. In recent years Burroughs has squared off against Apple Valley

and Oak Hills during the regular season.

Burroughs will have some major holes to fill in their quest for their eighth straight playoff appearance. The Burros lost their top three skill players from a year ago to graduation in quar-terback Ryan Sanford, running back Trevor Baker and receiver Tom Jones. Sanford completed 62.5 percent of his passes while throwing for 1,375 yards and 19 touchdowns to eight intercep-tions. He also ran for 393 yards and four touchdowns. Baker ran

for 606 yards on 122 carries and Jones caught 41 passes for 685 yards.

Despite the amount of change in the offseason, Mather, who’s in his fourth year as head coach, said he felt like the program was in the midst of its best offseason so far. What the team lacks in returning names it makes up for with depth. The Burros won’t need to play many athletes both ways.

That was a major problem last year as the Burros, who run an up-tempo spread offense, slowed considerably in the sec-ond half of games. After halftime they were outscored 126-67, only scored more than seven points once, held the other team score-

less just three times and out-scored the other team just three times as well.

“Right now, it looks like, ‘Hey, we are on the right track because we’ve developed some pretty talented kids,’ ” Mather said. “We have a lot of skill kids that are new. I feel like we have more depth than we’ve had in a long time, at skill positions and the line.”

Mather said the strength of the team will be the offensive line with Michael Stanciu, Aus-tin Groshens and John Hicks all returning.

“They’ve worked together for three years,” Mather said. “They understand our system.”

Fourth year as head coach, assisted from 1996-2005.

It’s going to be tough. I expect us to compete and be in every game and be physical. I expect us to com-pete every week.

We’re not the richest school, but we make do with what we have.

I played at the Uni-

versity of Tennessee at Mar-tin where I played QB. I came home and got right into coach-

ing for then new coach Roger Whalen. I knew I always want-ed to coach and Roger gave me

my first job.

I love watching the kids develop into young men. We’re with them while they’re still kids and then they turn into young adults. I love being a part of that.

I graduated from Burroughs and went to Orange Coast College for two years before transfer-ring to the University of Ten-nessee at Martin.

No.

Quarterback and free safety in high school.

Darrell Eddins (special

teams), Rance Pippens, David Ledesma (offensive line), Brian Kajiwara (defensive coordina-tor), Tony Brown, Cody Pearce and Gabe Camacho.

Nebraska, the Char-gers and more than anything the Dodgers.

2005 when Burroughs won the CIF Southern Section (Division 8) Championship.

(Former Burroughs coach) Jeff Steinberg. I still call him weekly.

Off-roading with my brothers.

Tri-tip.


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Hesperia must replace last season’s

top skill players

Life on the gridiron sure looked fun for Hesperia early in the 2013 season.

The Scorpions piled up wins and points at a rapid pace. They averaged 45 points a game while starting the season on a four-game winning streak. They even-tually finished the season at 6-5 with a 69-20 loss to San Gorgo-nio in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Eastern Divi-sion playoffs. It was the culmina-tion of a steady three-year rise as the Scorpions made their first playoff appearance since 2008.

Can the Scorpions build on that momentum or will they fall back into rebuilding mode? No matter what, this year’s version of the Scorpions will be a very dif-ferent one.

“We are going to show some things we haven’t done in the past,” head coach Jeremy Topete said. “I’m excited though. I’m looking forward to it.”

The Scorpions’ top skill play-ers all gone. They lost top receiv-er Chris Crummel and top run-ning back Semaje Williams to graduation. Their best defender, linebacker Eljiah Wallace, also graduated.

Those losses were expected. Then they found out quarterback Austin Williams, who had start-ed since his sophomore season, transferred to Serrano, and Alex Hammond, who was their second best receiver, decided to stick to basketball and track.

“It was tough,” senior safety Isiah Nicholson said. “Every year you have to go through adversity. When that happened, it didn’t crush our hearts because we are used to going through adversity. We have the talent for other peo-

ple to step up.”The Hesperia offense of 2014

won’t look much like the up tempo one that proceeded it. Topete was forced to reconfigure the offense. Hesperia will still be a spread team but one predicated on the run much more than the pass.

“Last year the zone read was a run, pass option with Austin,” Topete said. “This year it’s more of a run, run option with a pass available still.”

The Scorpions don’t have the depth to run the no huddle like

they did last season. There are seven or eight players who will be playing on both offense and defense.

Junior quarterback Eddie Gleason steps in to replace Wil-liams. Topete called him a true football player who doesn’t mind getting hit to make a play but also has deceptive speed in his running.

“Me and Austin, we have two actually completely different quarterback styles,” Gleason said. “He’s more of a passer. I’m more of a runner. I think I fit good with the offense this year.”

The biggest addition comes in the form of new defensive coordi-

nator Cesar Villalobos, who spent the last two seasons as the head coach at Summit. He has a CIF-SS ring after Summit won the 2011 Eastern Division title while he was a defensive coordinator. Villalobos made the move after a physical education position opened up at Hesperia. He had been a substitute teacher at Sum-mit. The players lauded his addi-tion to the program.

“He’s a great resource,” Topete said. “He’s brought a dif-ferent dynamic to the staff. He’s definitely solidified the defensive side of the ball. He’s just a great resource. He’s worked with some great athletes. He’s got a CIF ring,

multiple playoff teams. He’s got some playoff experience, why not pick his brain?”

The Scorpions never quite regained their same groove after a 23-14 upset loss to Fontana in the fifth game last season. They’ll get an early shot at revenge when they open the season against Fon-tana. Plenty of Hesperia players still have that loss fresh in their minds.

“I would say we are ready for our first game,” Nicholson said in mid-August. “I wish it was tomorrow.”

This will be my seventh year.

We want to build off our success. Our program has been moving in the right direction, and we want to continue to build from within and continue to move forward.

Using football to teach life lessons.

In 1998, I was jogging around at San Dimas High School and the O-line coach shouted at me. He had played college ball with me and told me that he had openings in the fall.

Being able to apply life lessons to the sport. The grind, dedication, work ethic and accountability that the

sport teaches.

Row-land High School, and then to Cit-rus Junior College for two years.

San Dimas High School, Chaffey College and Hesperia High School

Quar-terback and punter

Cesar Villalobos, Vince Diaz, Darnel Diggs, LaVel Lonian and Michael Moreno

USC

A triple-overtime win at Grossmont College while I was with Chaffey, which gave us the inside track to the conference championship.

Ted Clarke, the D-line coach at Citrus and head coach at San Dimas.

Golf and travel

Anything they can get their hands on.


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Fletcher returns to give Oak Hills another option

on offense

When the Oak Hills offensive line made a hole — big or small — during the first six games of last season, DeZhontaey Fletch-er found it and made defenses pay.

The small, shifty running back found the end zone 19 times and rumbled for more than 1,300 yards — tops among the 11-man teams in the High Desert. Fletcher’s great season came to a screeching halt when he broke three bones in his left ankle the first time he touched the ball in the seventh game of the season.

Slot receiver Gino Mastan-drea replaced Fletcher in the backfield and went on to earn the Daily Press Football Offen-sive Athlete of the Year. The Bulldogs finished second in the Mojave River League and lost in the second round of the playoffs.

Fletcher, a senior, has now fully recovered and is an inch and a half taller and 30 pounds heavier due to weight lifting and eating. He adds another weapon for senior quarterback Nolan Brammer, who is in his third year as the starter after completing 139 of 255 passes for 2,523 yards, 31 touchdowns and six interceptions last year.

“It feels great having him back,” said Mastandra. “He was an asset on the team last year. When he went down, the heart of the team kind of broke a lit-tle bit, but having him back is incredible, because he’s stronger than what he was last year.”

Mastandrea (2,197 all-purpose yards with 24 TDs), who will also start at cornerback in an untested defensive backfield, will move back to the slot on offense.

After Fletcher’s injury, Jeremi-ah Lorick, who is now a junior, emerged as a threat at wide receiver with 21 catches and six touchdowns over the final six games. Bradley Kistner — head coach Robert Kistner’s son who starts at linebacker — is also slated to get reps at wideout.

“We kind of feel like with Gino, Fletcher and Lorick out on the field, you’re going to have a hard time,” Robert Kistner said. “You’re going to shut down one, but who are you going to shut down?”

While Oak Hills is loaded with speed at the skill positions, their success may hinge on how well the offensive line comes together. The Bulldogs graduated four of five starters — including Boise State freshman Troy Bacon — with Joe Rodriguez being the only returner.

Chris Richardson — who will also start on a talented defensive line — will go both ways as could Austin Sweeney.

“I’m feeling pretty good with where we’re at,” Kistner said.

Jeff Thomas and Richardson return as starters on the defen-sive line, and Apple Valley trans-fer Dempsey Robinson could provide a boost.

A beefed up non-league schedule that includes games against Los Osos and Crespi, and several seniors who have grown up playing together could be the winning combination to finally beating Serrano and get-ting past the quarterfinals for the first time.

“I’m pretty excited,” Fletcher said. “I feel like this year’s team is better than any team that I ever played with, because we’re just more together. We’re more united, we’re more family. We can always depend on each other.”

Six years.

To do the best we can. We want to challenge for the title.

Up and coming.

My high school coach when I was done playing col-lege ball, he needed help and asked me to coach. And I’ve been coaching ever since.

Interaction with the

kids and the competition.

: Cal State Northridge.

I coached at Hesperia for six years, at Bloomington

High and Colton High School, Chaffey College and San Ber-nardino Valley College.

Offensive lineman.

Robert Metzger, Keith Locklear, Chris Fore, Steve Lozano, Rick Notarianni, Tha-lee Wadoo.

49ers and Florida State.

Probably when I was a defen-sive coordinator at Blooming-ton and we won CIF.

I would have to go with Carl Beach from Chaffey College.

Fishing.

: Baker’s.


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Former Hesperia quarterback Austin

Williams joins Serrano

Like with every new football season, there is much about the Serrano football team that seems unchanged.

Serrano is a program where change is the exception to the rule.

Ray Maholchic is entering his 23rd season as head coach. New players cycle in and out but run largely the same systems. The Diamondbacks have maintained a certain level of excellence over the years, having won five straight outright Mojave River League titles. The goal is always to win the league title and pro-ceed deep into the playoffs from there.

And all that holds true this season as well, but Serrano will have one key change to its lineup.

Former Hesperia quarterback Austin Williams transferred to Serrano during offseason after his family moved to Phelan. Wil-liams gives the typically run-first D’backs a new dynamic.

“Having Austin come in, it was a such a relief, honestly,” senior wide receiver Adam Brown said. “Our running game is usually what carries us through every season ... but I feel this year could be a very good passing season.”

Williams is arguably the top returning quarterback in the area alongside Oak Hills’ Nolan Brammer. He threw for 3,881 yards and 35 touchdowns in two seasons at Hesperia. Williams beat out junior David Forbes, who was penciled in as the Dia-mondbacks’ starter after taking over the job during the second half of last season.

The biggest challenge to making full use of their newest

weapon will be catching the ball. “Definitely we have to get bet-

ter at catching the ball,” Mahol-chic said. “During the summer we’ve gone to a lot of passing tournaments and done well. We just have to get a little more con-sistent catching the ball. We’ll make a great catch and then drop an easy one.”

Williams said he feels con-fident moving from a no-hud-dle spread system at Hesperia and already feels at home at Serrano.

“Everyone is helping each other out because it’s just team over here,” Williams said. “That’s what I like about Serrano. It’s

not about who’s going where, who’s doing this. It’s, what did Serrano do?”

The Diamondbacks are com-ing off a 10-2 season that ended with a 19-7 loss to Moreno Val-ley in the Eastern Division quar-terfinals. It was the first time in five seasons Serrano hadn’t made the semifinals.

The Diamondbacks’ biggest question marks come from their lines. The defensive line that gave Serrano a big push up front and helped hold opponents to 7.25 points per game last year is all gone, including 2013 Daily Press Football Defensive Athlete of the Year Jay Henderson.

What the line lacks in experi-ence, the linebacking core makes up for. Senior John Mackesy, who has interest from the

University of California, Davis according to Maholchic, will lead the way along with returning senior starters Jacob Glaser and Geordan King, who is moving up from the defensive backfield.

“We had a great defense last year, but we have lots of guys stepping up in spots where we lost seniors,” Mackesy said. “I like the way our defense looks this year.”

On offense, the line returns just two starters, including Mackesy at center. While less experienced, it will be a bigger line than last year. King will be the featured back after running for 1,058 yards despite playing in just eight games last season.

I’ve been a coach and teacher there since 1987 and became the head coach in ’92.

It’s the same every year, winning record in nonleague, win league and challenge for a CIF title. Our goal is to win Mojave River League, (that’s) priority No. 1 for us.

Kids have a lot of pride in who they repre-sent in the school and the history of the program.

I graduated from San Diego State. I was liv-ing on the beach, coach-ing at my alma mater at El Camino Real and got a call from a friend who was a coach at Cal State North-ridge. I interviewed for the defensive line coach and coached there for two years. They cleaned house on the defensive side, and I went to Burbank.

The relationships with kids, being able to make a difference in lives, help guide them to be better citizens, fathers, the cliché.

I started at Cal Lutheran and finished off at

San Diego State.

El Camino Real, Cal State Northridge and Burbank.

I started at offensive line at Cal Lutheran as a freshman and after that walked on at San Diego State.

Casey Maholchic (offensive line), Max Mahol-chic (quarterbacks/outside linebackers), Mark Forbes (tight ends), Ryan Antel (wide receivers), Geoff Ries (defensive coordinator), Casey Goodnough (defen-sive line), Andy Hay (inside linebackers) and Paul Con-kle (defensive backs).

I root for San Diego State, Notre Dame, the Chargers, the Boston Red Sox and after moving from the East to the West Coast, the Dodgers.

One specific moment was when we won the CIF title. That’s the dream of the whole program.

I’ve followed the career and read books for Bill Parcells.

Riding motorcycles. My wife and I like to ride the Harley and go to the river.

Spa-ghetti, because they get a lot of it.


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From theSerrano Football

Boosters

Sultana hopes improved chemistry

leads to better results

The 2013 season wasn’t any-thing to write home about for the Sultana football team.

The Sultans went 1-9 and their only touchdown in Mojave River League play came in the last quarter of the fourth and final game.

Sultana, which last made the playoffs in 2011 with an at-large bid, is looking to be much more competitive this season, and even believes it can get back to the postseason.

“What I’ve been preaching to these guys is if we can be in the fourth quarter with every team we play, it gives us a chance to win, and we didn’t have that last year,” second-year head coach David Booth Jr. said. “I think the only game we were in was that game we won when we beat Granite. Everything else we were in the first half or the first quar-ter. They understand this year that it’s not one quarter or one half, it’s every minute that they have to play hard and be in it.”

Sultana will try to make the turnaround without much varsi-ty starting experience. Only five starters return — four on offense and one on defense — from a team that graduated 25 seniors, but several players talked glow-ingly about this team’s chemistry.

“Last year we never clicked as a team, but this year we have the chemistry and we’re playing as one,” senior quarterback Johna-than Dean said.

The Sultans will be leaning on an offensive line that brings back three starters in center Elija Bla-sius, left tackle Edwin Perez and right tackle Julio Lara.

“Our offensive line is definitely faster and we’re stronger,” said

Blasius, who will also start at middle linebacker.

Dean, who will also play strong safety, is the lone skill position player who got significant time on the field last year. He passed for 744 yards on 72-for-163 pass-ing with 10 interceptions and five TDs, and he ran for 74 yards on 38 attempts. Dean is also the leading returning tackler with 15.

Other than that, the Sultans are slim on varsity experience. Their leading returning rusher is junior Christian Mexia, who ran for 78 yards on 10 carries. He’s slated to start at running back.

Besides Mexia and Dean, no other returner had more than one carry or reception last season.

Undersized nose tackle David Ocegueda is the lone returning starter on defense, but Booth Jr. said William Bowers, who is 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds, returns after missing last season with a knee injury.

Booth Jr. said about 15 players who didn’t play last year have returned to the program.

“All of them are definitely going to help, increase our potential and make us better as a team,” Booth Jr. said.

Despite the lack of experience, there’s a degree of optimism at Sultana, and Booth Jr. noticed

an improved attitude from last year. He said last season they had players not willing to work, but this year players are dedicated to each other.

“They believe they can win every game, which is what we’ve been preaching to them. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” Booth Jr. said. “We’re not going to be the most talented team in the High Desert or probably even the most talented team in Hesperia, but these guys have definitely jumped onto the philosophy of working hard, and it’s going to pay off.”

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Two years.

I expect us to compete. Our team chemistry is amaz-ing right now. These guys have totally bought into the systems that my staff and myself have put in. They work hard. They keep each other accountable.

Hold the rope. That’s what our theme is for the year.

I grew up around a head football coach. I just kind of followed in his show steps.

My dad was a head coach for 25-plus years. I was around football my whole life.

Just seeing the guys develop into leaders. Seeing them when they are young as

freshman, sophomores and developing into young men as seniors that are ready to take on the world. I also like to see them get into college, get a scholar-ship and get their education.

Northwest-ern College i n O ra n ge City, Iowa.

Hesperia Christian, Hesperia and

Oak Hills as an assistant coach.

Running back and linebacker in high school. Fullback in college.

Dave Booth Sr. (safety coach), Freddy Johnson (offen-sive line coach), Rick Jaques (defensive coordinator), Eric Ruesch (defensive line coach), Dean Dorsey ( l inebacker coach), Joe Ward (running backs coach), Adrian Toriz

(linebackers coach), Kellyn Fuigile (corner backs coach), Obie Galindo (receivers coach).

USC and the St. Louis Rams

(David Booth Sr.) Probably this past offseason getting two of my guys four-year scholarships to college. That was amazing.

Probably have to be my dad, being around him all the time and learning the game from him.

Lifting weights and playing baseball.

Sub sandwiches from Knockout Pizza.


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This Season!

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six-team league was nice, but the two-hour trip

to Ridgecrest wasn’t always pleasant.

Both things are gone from the Desert Sky League this sea-son. Burroughs dropped out of the DSL and joined the Mojave River League, and the league didn’t replace the Burros with anybody else.

Instead, the DSL goes back to five teams and only two teams will receive automatic berths into the postseason instead of the three they had last season.

Other changes to the DSL for this season include newly designed helmets at Victor Valley and Barstow, and new uniforms for the Jackrab-bits and Silverado.

While all of these are certainties, the league title race is anything but certain. It’s been very close in recent years, but this season might be more competitive than ever.

“I wouldn’t be sur-prised if anybody beat anybody every week,” Granite Hills head coach Damian Staricka said.

Silverado returns six starters on each side of the ball, with its strong defense bringing some hard hitters back.

Each of the last two seasons, Silverado’s been

undefeated heading into its final two league games only to lose both and fin-ish tied for third.

Head coach Rafael Ginorio said that while the Hawks have been talented each of the last two seasons, they’ve been young. But he said he has a more seasoned group this year.

“Whether we’re the favorites, it doesn’t mat-ter. It’s all about getting the job done, competing and being more physi-cal,” said Ginorio, who enters his third season as Silverado’s head coach. “The kids have bought in. Summer and spring ball have been the best we’ve had.”

After losing some transfers to Upland, Victor Valley wasn’t expected to compete for the league title last year, but the Jackrabbits came together and went undefeated in DSL play. Leland Eudy stepped down as head coach, but not a lot should change with offensive coordina-tor and Victor Valley graduate Mark Mora taking over and Eudy remaining on the staff as the offensive line coach.

The Jackrabbits grad-uated some key players, but have enough talent coming back to be com-petitive. Mora’s hoping to lead Victor Valley to the playoffs in back-to-back

seasons for the first time in 12 years.

“With winning comes greater expectations,” Mora said. “The bar’s been set high now, and we expect to live up to that. That’s something we’re going to have to live up to.”

Granite Hills is two seasons removed from a winless schedule, but should be improved with Staricka becoming the first head coach to return in five years and the Cougars bringing back 15 starters.

Barstow, which only had two experienced starters heading into last season, gained a lot of experience last year, and

this time around eight starters on both sides of the ball are back to a team that finished a game out of the playoffs and lost to eventual league champion Victor Valley by a touchdown.

While Adelanto struggled in its first year in the DSL — it was only competitive in a 44-20 opening loss to Barstow and a 21-19 loss to Granite Hills — the Saints didn’t have a senior class.

“I think everybody’s improved, ourselves included,” Ginorio said.

We’ll see when league play kicks off Oct. 10.


Adelanto enters second varsity

season with everybody back

Adelanto head coach Jayson Hughes can envision a day when the new high school’s facilities — not just the football stadium — become the hub of a growing community.

But until then, the players are just happy that they’re finally on campus in the third year the school’s been open. Instead of tak-ing a bus from the temporary cam-pus in Victorville to Adelanto’s sta-dium — which the team calls “The Saintuary” — for practice every day, players are able to stay on campus after school.

Adelanto heads into its second season of varsity football after a rough first year. The Saints went 1-8-1 and were outscored 371-55 in their first eight games.

Adelanto ended last season on a high note, tying Rancho Mirage 9-9 and then pounding fellow first-year program Indian Springs 45-0. Hughes said finishing well and posting an 8-2 record at the freshman level are positives that the young program build on.

“The expectations are high for all three levels that we have, basi-cally to be real competitive and have one of the top spots to make the playoffs in the DSL,” Hughes said.

The Saints will still be a young team as sophomore Seth Hughes — who is Jayson’s son — is expect-ed to start at quarterback and sophomore running back Dequan Pree is competing for the starting spot with senior Michael Brad-ley. Hughes and Pree were two of four freshmen to play varsity last season.

Senior Kylon Brokenbough, who’s recovering from a thumb injury, also returns and will be

counted upon in a number of dif-ferent roles on offense. He’ll see action at receiver, running back and quarterback.

The offensive line was a weak spot for the Saints last season, but Jayson Hughes said the lineman have been working every day since last season ended in November. Hughes’ coaching staff and the school district helped fund a weight room on the stadium grounds.

“We have some really good young running backs,” Hughes said. “To be successful in the Des-ert Sky, the line is going to have to work together, know their blocking

assignments, know their schemes and really be the foundation of the team.”

During the offseason, Adelan-to came away as the silver round champions of the Lancaster pass-ing tournament.

“They fight every single day,” Hughes said. “That’s the rea-son I love being their head coach, because they come every single day and fight for the best thing they can do for their team.”

With the exception of a game against Serrano, the Saints have a very manageable nonleague sched-ule that could net some wins and give them some confidence head-ing into Desert Sky League play. Three of their opponents (Linfield Christian, Heritage Christian and California City) have enrollments

of fewer than 600 students, while Eastside — the Saints’ season-opening opponent — and Lan-caster both missed the playoffs last season.

“So we’re going to have a lot of good competition inside the Desert Sky and outside the Desert Sky,” Hughes said.

The growing pains were all expected last year and the players learned a lot from it.

“Now we know what to expect. Last year, we had never been in a varsity game. So last year, a lot of big boys hitting us, now we know how it feels and we want to come back and hit them,” offensive line-man Jonathan Uribe said.

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This is my third year.

We’re going to basically make the playoffs.

D i ve rs i ty t h ro u gh adversity.

I started coaching at Rubidoux.

I

love the strategy, the kids and helping kids become better adults and have a better life.

Rubidoux High School.

Knight, Hesperia, Sultana, Rubidoux and Victor Valley College.

I played wide receiver, running back and safety.

Gabriel Barrera, Nick Wheeler and Kevin Lewis.

USC

Seeing kids at Adelanto and starting this new program.

Probably Wayne Cochran, my main coach in high school.

Spending time with my family.

Pizza before games.


Barstow should benefit from a year

of consistency

What a difference a year togeth-er has made for the Barstow foot-ball team.

Ray Silva didn’t become the head coach of the Aztecs until June of 2013 after previous coach Mike Esposito took the defensive coordi-nator position at Victor Valley Col-lege, and Barstow had just two var-sity starters returning. That only gave the Aztecs a couple of months to adjust from the spread to the wing-T offense.

Despite the short time to get ready for the season, Barstow was competitive in the six-team DSL, but finished 4-6 overall and missed the playoffs.

Fast forward a year, and the Aztecs have had a full offseason of training to prepare for this season, which included a year-round weight training program, passing leagues down the hill and a San Dimas foot-ball camp for three days to work on the offense.

Only eight players from last year’s team graduated and eight starters on each side of the ball return, giving the Aztecs hope that they’re ready for a playoff push.

“Last year we had to come in with a complex offense, but now we have kind of a simple offense and we’re all confident we can run it because we all know the plays very well,” senior running back Dion Brown said. “So we’re executing the plays very successfully. I feel like we have a better chance than last year, because everybody didn’t know the plays.”

Last season, the Aztecs held leads against league champion and Axe Game rival Victor Valley and against second-place Burroughs before the opponents pulled away in both games.

“Turnovers really plagued us last year, and we’ve really worked on that,” Silva said. “Clearing the

ball high and tight and hanging onto the football, that will really help us. We put the ball on the ground too much last year.”

While leading rusher Oshua Rothwell (815 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns on 101 carries) gradu-ated, Barstow brings back a wealth of varsity experience at running back. Seniors Brown (339 yards on 52 carries and two TDs) and George Gatti (377 yards and seven TDs on 49 attempts) and sophomore Adri-an Smith are fighting for reps at the halfback position. The fullback — or a traditional tailback — posi-tion is between juniors Brandon Pierce (42 carries for 425 yards and

three TDs) and Brandon McHenry (53 carries for 284 yards and four TDs). Sophomore Andrew Espi-noza is slated to be the wing back and junior Jordon Lonzo (264 rush-ing yards on 61 attempts) returns behind center at quarterback.

Silva said on top of the wing-T, the Aztecs will also incorporate some pistol wing-T.

Barstow returns three starting offensive lineman from last season and has lots of depth at the varsity and junior varsity level with 17 play-ers who can play on the line.

Defensively, Barstow will go with a 4-5-2 base, with the defensive line being the strength.

Seniors Kiler Holmyer and Sil-verio Perez return to the interior of line, while junior Ezra Alapati

returns to left defensive end and Pierce — Barstow’s leading tackler as a sophomore — will move from inside linebacker to right end.

Sophomore Elijah Poupou start-ed at outside linebacker as a fresh-man and will move to an interior linebacking position.

Barstow added A.B. Miller and Rim of the World to its schedule and kept ex-league opponent Bur-roughs on the schedule to mirror what it’ll see in DSL play.

“We want to improve upon our record from last year,” Silva said. “We want to be a more physi-cal team, and just get that year-around program going. Get the kids out early and build a program like everybody else has in the High Desert.”

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This will be my seventh year.

I hope to be more competitive. We’re looking for a more competitive season.

Physical.

I started coaching the year after I graduated.

I think it’s just working with the young men and the com-petition of football and getting the guys ready to go to battle every Friday night.

Barstow High School

I coached at Silver Valley for four years, and I was a youth coach for fifteen years.

I was a linebacker.

Jay Thomp-son, Paul Knight and Mark Hassell

I’m a USC Trojans and Pitts-burgh Steelers fan.

Probably reach-ing the finals in 2008 as a defensive coordinator.

I’m a big John Wooden fan.

Football is my hobby, I don’t have many others.

A n y t h i n g p a s t a , spaghetti.


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Locally owned & operated. Serving the Barstow area and tourists since 1973.

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High Desert teams adopt popular, modern offense to

take advantage of speed

Victor Valley High is old school, no one will argue that.

The high school opened in 1915 and is the second oldest in the High Desert behind Barstow.

But when it comes to the football team’s offense, the Jackrabbits are completely modern. The spread formation, football’s latest craze, has worked its way to Victor Valley in recent years.

When Mark Mora took over as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2012, he believed an offense predicated on speed was just what the Jackrabbits needed.

“We went to the spread because we hadn’t seemed to get big linemen at Victor,” said Mora, now in his first season as the Jackrabbits’ head coach. “We have a lot of skill guys, not a lot of size. Running a power or power I offense where you have to move bodies, we weren’t too good at that.”

Mora could see the results after the first season. Although the Jackrabbits finished just 2-7-1 in 2012, their offense was clear-ly improving. The previous season they’d scored just 73 points and upped that to 205. Their yardage rose from a paltry 968 to 3,044.

“The spread offense is the popular thing,” Mora said. “Once they see the numbers people are putting up in college, high school coaches think this is the way to go.

“It’s changed the game.”

The Jackrabbits aren’t alone. Seven of the 11 big-school teams in the High Des-ert will employ some form of the spread offense this year. The offense continues to gain popularity at every level of football nationally. In college it’s led to imaginative, high-octane versions of the offense that continue to set scoring records. In the NFL, all but five teams passed more than they

ran in 2013 as the league operated out of three or more receiver sets 58.8 percent of the time according to footballoutsiders.com. At every level fullbacks and a second tight ends are becoming dinosaurs.

Coaches across the High Desert said the spread offense has invited basketball-type athletes to come out for football as play-books have opened up beyond the power toss.

“A team like Serrano, they are trying to eat the clock and wear out your defense,” Silverado head coach Rafael Ginorio said. “That’s kind of their philosophy. Our phi-losophy is we have a lot of team speed so we are trying to maximize that, and make it a track meet and tire out the defense that way.”

High Desert teams scored an average of 25.8 points per game last season. It was the highest total in the last nine years.

Oak Hills moved to the offense in 2012. Their scoring average has risen from 31.5 points per game in 2011 to 36.2 in 2012 and to 43.4 last season. The Bulldogs were sec-ond in the Eastern Division in points per game last season, behind only San Gorgo-nio. Oak Hills senior wide receiver Gino Mastandrea and senior running back DeZhontaey Fletcher but are listed as 5-foot-11 and 5-6, respectively. But both are speedsters capable of breaking a big plays in space.

“That’s pretty much what the new gen-eration of offense is,” Oak Hills senior quar-terback Nolan Brammer said. “More up tempo, spreading the ball, spreading the offense out, spreading the defense out and just moving the ball faster.”

While trendy, the spread is not new.Rusty Russell is considered the founder

of the offense after implementing it with his Masonic Home boarding school teams starting in the late 1920s in Fort Worth, Texas. Former TCU coach and College Football Hall of Famer Leo “Dutch” Meyer wrote “Spread Formation Football” in 1952 and opened the book with the line, “Spread formations are not new to football.”

These days spread is a bit of blanket term. Merely stating you’re a spread team is about as informative as knowing Beyonce will make at least a few outfit changes on her latest tour. But the basic goal is to put athletes in space. Rather than running between the tackles, spread teams want skilled players out in the open with just one defender to beat, taking advantage of the width of the field.

Old-school football meant three yards and a cloud of dust. Now teams are look-ing for bubble screens caught three yards behind the line of scrimmage with the recip-ient taking off from there.

“That bubble that we do, it’s just a long handoff,” said Oak Hills coach Robert Kist-ner, who prefers a power-run game but is willing to adjust to the athletes he has. “It makes defenses have to defend 541⁄2 yards wide and however deep.”

The spread offense could mean using the no huddle to gain even more of an advan-tage on defenses. Or it could look a little more like an option, running-based offense. It can have as many varieties as the uni-form combinations worn by spread poster child the University of Oregon.

The spread landed in the High Desert when Burroughs hired Jeff Steinberg in 1998. Steinberg grew up in Canada, where football is played on a field that is 10 yards wider than those used in the United States and 150 yards long including the end zones. Teams also play with 12 players instead of 11. In that setting, using four and five receiv-ers instead of fullbacks and tight ends was natural.

“That was the philosophy in the Cana-dian game,” said Steinberg, who’s now the head coach at Santiago/Corona. “It seemed like the perfect fit to apply some of those same philosophies to what we were doing here.”

Steinberg slowly implemented his ideas in Ridgecrest. He estimates they used the spread 50 percent of the time his first sea-son and weren’t a full-on spread team until his third season. The Monday after his first game, some of the Burroughs teachers com-plained to Steinberg about how long the

game took after the Burros attempted 52 passes.

Their success culminated in a CIF-SS Division VIII title in 2005, when the Burros beat Palm Springs 42-30 in the title game and averaged 40.3 points per game for the season.

By that time, the spread offense was spreading. The clinics Steinberg was fre-quenting were starting to fill up and more teams in the Southlands were picking up on the trend. In the High Desert, Silverado was the next school on board. The Hawks picked up the offense in the mid-2000s and took off with it once dual-threat quarter-back Jemeryn Jenkins became a starter in 2007.

“I think the thing we had a problem with was getting into the playoffs and not hav-ing the offensive line with the schools that could compete in our division,” former Sil-verado head coach Carl Posey said. “(With the spread) we didn’t necessarily have to get so much push.”

Almost every local team has used the offense at some point in recent years. Ser-rano head coach Ray Maholchic doesn’t mind being the contrarian. He likes the idea of offering something different for teams to prepare for.

“If I could go back 30 years, I’d have spread it out and gone gun just to be dif-ferent,” Maholchic said. “Now with (the spread), I call it basketball in helmets. Hopefully we present a problem to prepare for a power run game in three days.”

Kistner doesn’t discount that he will see a day when a power run game returns to football prominence. Football is a cycli-cal game. The spread won’t stay en vogue forever.

“Football is a lot like fashion: What’s in is in and what’s out is out,” Kistner said.

The game moves in circles, sure. Teams are just running those circles at a faster pace these days.


High Desert teams adopt popular, modern offense to

take advantage of speed

Victor Valley High is old school, no one will argue that.

The high school opened in 1915 and is the second oldest in the High Desert behind Barstow.

But when it comes to the football team’s offense, the Jackrabbits are completely modern. The spread formation, football’s latest craze, has worked its way to Victor Valley in recent years.

When Mark Mora took over as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2012, he believed an offense predicated on speed was just what the Jackrabbits needed.

“We went to the spread because we hadn’t seemed to get big linemen at Victor,” said Mora, now in his first season as the Jackrabbits’ head coach. “We have a lot of skill guys, not a lot of size. Running a power or power I offense where you have to move bodies, we weren’t too good at that.”

Mora could see the results after the first season. Although the Jackrabbits finished just 2-7-1 in 2012, their offense was clear-ly improving. The previous season they’d scored just 73 points and upped that to 205. Their yardage rose from a paltry 968 to 3,044.

“The spread offense is the popular thing,” Mora said. “Once they see the numbers people are putting up in college, high school coaches think this is the way to go.

“It’s changed the game.”

The Jackrabbits aren’t alone. Seven of the 11 big-school teams in the High Des-ert will employ some form of the spread offense this year. The offense continues to gain popularity at every level of football nationally. In college it’s led to imaginative, high-octane versions of the offense that continue to set scoring records. In the NFL, all but five teams passed more than they

ran in 2013 as the league operated out of three or more receiver sets 58.8 percent of the time according to footballoutsiders.com. At every level fullbacks and a second tight ends are becoming dinosaurs.

Coaches across the High Desert said the spread offense has invited basketball-type athletes to come out for football as play-books have opened up beyond the power toss.

“A team like Serrano, they are trying to eat the clock and wear out your defense,” Silverado head coach Rafael Ginorio said. “That’s kind of their philosophy. Our phi-losophy is we have a lot of team speed so we are trying to maximize that, and make it a track meet and tire out the defense that way.”

High Desert teams scored an average of 25.8 points per game last season. It was the highest total in the last nine years.

Oak Hills moved to the offense in 2012. Their scoring average has risen from 31.5 points per game in 2011 to 36.2 in 2012 and to 43.4 last season. The Bulldogs were sec-ond in the Eastern Division in points per game last season, behind only San Gorgo-nio. Oak Hills senior wide receiver Gino Mastandrea and senior running back DeZhontaey Fletcher but are listed as 5-foot-11 and 5-6, respectively. But both are speedsters capable of breaking a big plays in space.

“That’s pretty much what the new gen-eration of offense is,” Oak Hills senior quar-terback Nolan Brammer said. “More up tempo, spreading the ball, spreading the offense out, spreading the defense out and just moving the ball faster.”

While trendy, the spread is not new.Rusty Russell is considered the founder

of the offense after implementing it with his Masonic Home boarding school teams starting in the late 1920s in Fort Worth, Texas. Former TCU coach and College Football Hall of Famer Leo “Dutch” Meyer wrote “Spread Formation Football” in 1952 and opened the book with the line, “Spread formations are not new to football.”

These days spread is a bit of blanket term. Merely stating you’re a spread team is about as informative as knowing Beyonce will make at least a few outfit changes on her latest tour. But the basic goal is to put athletes in space. Rather than running between the tackles, spread teams want skilled players out in the open with just one defender to beat, taking advantage of the width of the field.

Old-school football meant three yards and a cloud of dust. Now teams are look-ing for bubble screens caught three yards behind the line of scrimmage with the recip-ient taking off from there.

“That bubble that we do, it’s just a long handoff,” said Oak Hills coach Robert Kist-ner, who prefers a power-run game but is willing to adjust to the athletes he has. “It makes defenses have to defend 541⁄2 yards wide and however deep.”

The spread offense could mean using the no huddle to gain even more of an advan-tage on defenses. Or it could look a little more like an option, running-based offense. It can have as many varieties as the uni-form combinations worn by spread poster child the University of Oregon.

The spread landed in the High Desert when Burroughs hired Jeff Steinberg in 1998. Steinberg grew up in Canada, where football is played on a field that is 10 yards wider than those used in the United States and 150 yards long including the end zones. Teams also play with 12 players instead of 11. In that setting, using four and five receiv-ers instead of fullbacks and tight ends was natural.

“That was the philosophy in the Cana-dian game,” said Steinberg, who’s now the head coach at Santiago/Corona. “It seemed like the perfect fit to apply some of those same philosophies to what we were doing here.”

Steinberg slowly implemented his ideas in Ridgecrest. He estimates they used the spread 50 percent of the time his first sea-son and weren’t a full-on spread team until his third season. The Monday after his first game, some of the Burroughs teachers com-plained to Steinberg about how long the

game took after the Burros attempted 52 passes.

Their success culminated in a CIF-SS Division VIII title in 2005, when the Burros beat Palm Springs 42-30 in the title game and averaged 40.3 points per game for the season.

By that time, the spread offense was spreading. The clinics Steinberg was fre-quenting were starting to fill up and more teams in the Southlands were picking up on the trend. In the High Desert, Silverado was the next school on board. The Hawks picked up the offense in the mid-2000s and took off with it once dual-threat quarter-back Jemeryn Jenkins became a starter in 2007.

“I think the thing we had a problem with was getting into the playoffs and not hav-ing the offensive line with the schools that could compete in our division,” former Sil-verado head coach Carl Posey said. “(With the spread) we didn’t necessarily have to get so much push.”

Almost every local team has used the offense at some point in recent years. Ser-rano head coach Ray Maholchic doesn’t mind being the contrarian. He likes the idea of offering something different for teams to prepare for.

“If I could go back 30 years, I’d have spread it out and gone gun just to be dif-ferent,” Maholchic said. “Now with (the spread), I call it basketball in helmets. Hopefully we present a problem to prepare for a power run game in three days.”

Kistner doesn’t discount that he will see a day when a power run game returns to football prominence. Football is a cycli-cal game. The spread won’t stay en vogue forever.

“Football is a lot like fashion: What’s in is in and what’s out is out,” Kistner said.

The game moves in circles, sure. Teams are just running those circles at a faster pace these days.

Granite Hills is looking for a fast start to

the season

Attitude and perception are everything when it comes to the Granite Hills football program.

For the longest time the per-ception was that the Cougars were not only the doormats of the Desert Sky League but the entire High Desert.

That was fed by a revolving door of head coaches — five in five years — and a belief that players didn’t care about foot-ball at Granite Hills.

That was then. Two years into the Damian Staricka era and the program is on the upswing. Last year the Cougars won two games and were vastly improved toward the end of the season.

This year, Staricka said the team has lofty goals. He thinks if his team beats Apple Valley in Week 2, it can be 6-0 going into a pivotal game with DSL favor-ite Silverado.

“Frank (Pulice) and (that coaching staff ) do a great job getting their kids prepared,” Staricka said. “They should have beat Citrus Hill in the quarters last year. For us to go and beat a solid program like them, it would be big for us. If we do that on Sept. 5, I believe we can go 6-0.”

With a head coach returning for the first time since the 2009 season, the attitudes of the play-ers have improved.

“With a second-year coach, we’re not starting over. We’re continuing and we’ve never had that,” senior offensive/

defensive lineman Cole Trouber-man, who is in his third varsity season, said.

Granite Hills looks to build upon last season with much experience coming back. The Cougars return eight starters on offense and seven on defense.

Workhorse senior running back Chris Glick (1,052 yards and six touchdowns on 204 car-ries last season) returns along with an experienced offensive line that returns three start-ers and two more players with

varsity experience. Glick will be joined in the backfield by Victor Valley transfer Donald Mitch-ell, who was Victor Valley’s lead-ing rusher last year. Staricka said they’ll go with whatever’s working.

Glick looks forward to Mitch-ell sharing the backfield.

“He’s part of the team, and I’m not the whole team,” Glick said. “So everybody’s got to get the ball and everybody’s got to score and everybody’s got to do whatever for us to win the game.”

If Granite Hills is to compete for a league title, it’s going to have to improve a defense that gave up 20 plays of greater than

40 yards last season.“Last year, we didn’t have

anybody who wanted to step up and make plays, make hits,” Staricka said. “That came from football IQ. Now they have game time experience, summer com-petition and they don’t have a problem hitting.”

Granite Hills’ record for wins in a season is six, and Staricka said this year’s team can chal-lenge that if it stays healthy.

“You can change history at any school. It just matters how much work you put in, how much you can contribute to a team no matter what position you play,” Mitchell said. “It’s just the way you play it.”

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This is my sec-ond year.

Last year it was to be more intelligent, big-ger, stronger, faster. This year we’re going to concentrate on taking care of business on the field. (Our goal) is to set the win record for the school and make playoffs.

: From doormat to doorbell ringer. That means people are going to have to answer the door or we’ll have to kick it in.

The offensive coor-dinator from the senior all-star football game I played in offered me my first job at Cajon and the rest is history.

Just being around the game, being in the game, getting kids to understand it’s a game that can build their life. It’s fulfilling to be a part of sports.

I played baseball and football at the University of San Diego.

Cajon, San Bernardino, Ramona, Carter, Arroyo Val-ley, Etiwanda and Fontana.

Wide receiver, defensive back and special teams.

Joel Hurtt (defensive coordinator), Scott Smith, John Garner and Richard Murrell.

LSU and Florida State. In the pros, the New Orleans Saints.

I’ve really been influenced by some good position coaches, worked for some good coach-es, (but) one guy who’s been instrumental is Chuck Pope, not just in football but life.

Spaghetti


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Silverado’s Ginorio went looking for

answers this offseason

Rafael Ginorio realized it was time to go back to school.

In his two years at head coach at Silverado, his teams were just 10-12. The Hawks finished third in the Desert Sky League both sea-sons and had two first-round play-off losses.

Ginorio started looking for answers as to why his Hawks, who had won four straight league titles from 2006 to 2009, weren’t per-forming. He started looking out-ward and asked coaches around Southern California for advice.

“(Last year) we would show glimpses but just something was missing,” Ginorio said. “I’m not afraid to try things or admit mis-takes. Let’s make the program bet-ter. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He was able to talk football with fellow coaches and visit a few practices along the way. It’s led to a revitalized feeling as the Hawks enter the 2014 season.

“We’re feeling real confident,” Ginorio said. “We have a senior group. I think things are coming together.”

Ginorio contacted coaches out of the blue without any previous relationships and found a willing-ness to help from his colleagues. His staff visited with Matt Logan at Centennial/Corona, which won the Inland Division title last year and lost to St. John Bosco in the CIF Open Division championship game, and coaches from San Diego State among other places.

The experience helped Ginorio figure out that the Hawks needed to speed up practices and increase the competition level. Now, Gino-rio said his team is accomplishing more in less time at practice.

“Everything is faster,” senior quarterback Sam Taylor said. “You put five minutes on the clock, when that drill ends then it’s the next drill. When that five minutes ends, next drill, next drill. Nonstop. Everything is much quicker so the game should seem slow to us.”

The Hawks return a veteran group. Lineman Agustin Beltran, linebacker Chance Padilla and safety Dana Jenkins were All-CIF-Southern Section Eastern Division players last season. Taylor returns at quarterback after putting up 1,632 yards and 16 TDs.

The offense is staying as a no-huddle unit but sped up — Gino-

rio joked they were the “slowest no-huddle team in America” last year. Tight end Robert Evans, run-ning back Quincel Neal-Riles and wide receiver Mikeo Bonam will be counted on as some of Taylor’s main weapons with plenty of other options subbing in and out regularly.

Senior inside l inebacker Ammon Mauu joins Padilla and Jenkins on what should be a stout defense. Mauu, who registered 64 tackles last season, is expected to continue the tradition of the Hawks’ top linebacker wearing No. 8.

Despite graduating the entire defensive line, Ginorio said that unit has made significant strides during the offseason.

“We think that’s going to be

stronger because of the way those guys have hit the weight room,” Ginorio said. “I think we are not going to miss a beat.”

The goal is to reclaim the DSL title, but before the Hawks get there, they’ll play a brutal non-league schedule that includes games against Serrano, Los Osos and Santiago/Corona, which has Blake Barnett, an Alabama com-mit and the No. 2 rated quarter-back in the country according to ESPN.

The offseason was time for school, but the exam starts Aug. 29 against Apple Valley.

“We are much improved this year,” Taylor said. “Watch out for us. We are going to be a threat this year.”

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Since 2005. As head coach this will be my third year.

We have a really talent-ed group, but our expectations are to be really good. We’ve been building for this season and we’ve learned a lot collec-tively the last few years. We also have a really good group of senior kids who we think can take us places. We expect to do good things.

Success with honor is our philosophy. We want to be fast and physical, win every moment, do it honor-

ably and in the right way.

I was a college athlete and helped work football games behind the scenes. I wanted to be a teacher and work with kids and the opportunity came

to coach and teach at Silvera-do and I took it in 2005. It has been a good couple of years and it has been fun.

Being able to reach them on a personal level. As a

teacher you might not get the same connection as a coach. Having an influence on their lives and having athletes who come back to the school and watching your players learn and reflect. They might not appreci-ate you when you coach them, but they realize afterwards. That is the most rewarding.

Century High School and Uni-versity of LaVerne. I ran track there and worked with the foot-ball coaches there.

Nope

I concentrated on track.

Ke-ron Jones (defensive coordinator), John McCormick (offensive line), Brian Scott

(defensive backs), Rudy Gonza-lez (defensive line), Alvin Brown (outside linebackers) and Nate Stokes (wide receivers).

I’m a big 49ers fan and USC.

Last year, opening up the sta-dium and beating Serrano for the first time since 2006. It was a magical night with fireworks and the kids playing their first home game.

Pete Carroll, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden, Bill Parcells, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick.

Spending time with my family.

Johnny Carino’s


Victor Valley looks to build on league title

What does winning a league title do for a program?

Just ask the Victor Valley foot-ball team, which is coming off a season in which it went 7-4 over-all and 5-0 in Desert Sky League play for its second championship in four seasons.

Participation for the Jackrab-bits, who had two rough seasons in between league titles, is at a record high. That also leaves the program starving for more success, especially after bowing out to Bell Game rival Apple Val-ley 10-7 in the first round of the playoffs.

“I think the way we played and the way we went out last year, we have more high expectations for ourselves,” Victor Valley line-backer Chris Estrella-Ramirez said.

Victor Valley drew roughly 120 players to the three levels of the program this year, includ-ing 45 at varsity and 35 at junior varsity.

Head coach Mark Mora, who was the offensive coordinator last season, is hoping the large number of players will help bring consistency to the program. The ’Rabbits haven’t made the play-offs in back-to-back years since 2002, and they haven’t produced consecutive winning records since 2009 and 2010.

In between the last two league titles, Victor Valley went a com-bined 3-16-1, and the Jackrab-bits graduated several players from last year’s DSL champi-onship team. Leland Eudy also stepped down as head coach, but

is remaining on staff as an offen-sive line coach.

“I think our coaches on cam-pus did a good job to get kids to give (football) a shot,” Mora said. “Hopefully we can keep it going. Victor’s been up and down, like a roller coaster. We haven’t been consistent, because we had (sea-sons with) 12 JV kids. You can’t build a program like that. Hope-fully this will spark something and we can build a program.”

Offensively, they’ll need to replace a lot. Dual threat quar-terback Daniel Walker graduated

along with four of the starting offensive lineman and standout receiver Daniel Tate. Leading rusher Donald Mitchell trans-ferred to Granite Hills.

But Victor Valley gained another dual-threat quarterback named Walker in Silverado trans-fer Mark-Anthony Walker.

“With this Walker, we still have a strong quarterback,” senior starting wide receiver Elijah Creighton said. “If he’s in trouble, he can maneuver around and get yardage running, but he can also throw. Pretty much we have the same Walker, just a dif-ferent first name.”

Defensively, the Jackrabbits bring back a little more start-

ing experience with Estrella-Ramirez, DeShon Will iams and Aaron Lopez at linebacker. Creighton, who started at cor-ner back, moves to free safety to team with strong safety Hardy Brandon.

Before Victor Valley attempts a title defense, it will be tested with tough nonleague games against CIF-Southern Section Inland Division playoff teams Chapparal and Chino Hills.

“It allows us to see where we’re at with a good team, and when we get to league we’ll be ready for anything we face,” Creighton said.

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Coaching football, 14 years.

We’re try-ing to compete for a league championship.

We might not be the biggest strongest or fast-est guy, but we overcome it through hard work.

I was a baseball coach at the high school for about 16 years, so I started with baseball, but when a

friend got the head coaching job at Victor, I went on his staff and worked my way up to take over the head coaching job this year.

I love making an impact on the kids. You get to develop relationships with these guys and hope your

influence will impact them down the road

I went to Victor Valley High, then went to Cal State San Bernardino.

I coached one year at Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

I was more of a baseball guy. I was a third baseman.

Jeff Vanover, Leland Eudy, Ryan Jensen, Mike Cummings.

I like watching Ore-gon in college because of their style of offense, and in the NFL

I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan.

Winning the league title last year and beating Silverado for the first time in like 12 years for an outright league champi-onship. We had only shared the title previously.

Leland Eudy and Joe Vargas

Spending time with my three boys, who have grown up play-ing sports. Taking them all over California playing football, soccer and wrestling. I really enjoy doing that.

We get different pre-game meals every week.


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Excelsior looks to return to former CIF prominence

Finishing 8-4 and winning a first-round playoff game sounds like a fairly successful season, especially if you con-sider it was the team’s first as an 11-man football squad.

But not at Excelsior.After three consecutive trips

to the CIF-Southern Section 8-Man Division I champion-ship game, culminating in the school’s first title in 2012, the Eagles have become accus-tomed to winning and simply put, 8-4 was not good enough.

“We see things a little dif-ferently around here and our program as a whole was not satisfied,” said head coach Bill Rivera, who is heading into his 11th season with Excelsior. “We left some unfinished business out there on the field.”

After finishing in a tie for third in their first season in the competitive Desert Mountain League, the Eagles hope to be right back in the mix in 2014, and a league title is just one of the lofty goals that motivate Rivera’s team.

“Everybody looks down on Excelsior as this small school,” said senior lineman Kameron Peterson. “But we’re going to go out there this year and show them that we belong with the big guys.”

To do that, the Eagles must overcome the loss of their starting quarterback, top wide receiver and one of their top running backs from last sea-son. Taking over behind center after Nathaniel Rivera gradu-

ated is junior Jaden Garcia, who has been with the Eagles the past two years and played in 11 games in 2013.

While still using some tra-ditional double-wing offensive sets, the Eagles are developing what Rivera called a “hybrid wing-T” offense this season, and Garcia will be tasked with moving the ball downfield a lit-tle more through the air.

Rivera will rely on one of his team’s strengths this season: Speed.

“Our quarterback is just flat

fast,” he said, “and we return one of our best running backs in Lionel Lonian. The kid is quick and he doesn’t go down on the first tackle, so that is pretty impressive.”

Opening holes for Lonian and the rest of the Excelsior backfield will be senior stal-warts Rocky Sua at tackle and Peterson at guard, two of the seven returning offensive starters.

Last year Rivera said the Eagles were hit pretty hard by the injury bug, losing five start-ers to freak injuries in practice. That is something he and his coaching staff have been trying to remedy before this season

begins.The Eagles have spent a

little less time on hitting, and a lot more time preparing in the weight room and the classroom.

On defense, the Eagles return six starters and get a new defensive coordinator in Carlton Baines, a former coach from league rival Riverside Prep.

The defense will face a chal-lenging start to its season as the Eagles open with argu-ably three of their four tough-est opponents in the first five weeks of the season.

Excelsior starts with defend-ing De Anza League champi-

on Big Bear at home on Aug. 29. Then the Eagles travel to Los Angeles to play a difficult Windward team. Then two weeks later they host Desert, the reigning DML champion.

But its all part of the big-ger picture for Rivera and the Eagles.

“If you want to be the best, you’ve got to play the best,” he said. “Nobody is expecting us to win that first game, but we are going to go out there and be physical and bang some heads. And if we win that game, peo-ple are going to start to take notice of us.”

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Ninth season

To improve upon last year’s performance.

Fast.

When I was done playing the game, I started coaching in Arizo-na around the age of 30.

The kids

we get to spend time with and mentor.

I graduated from Victor Valley Christian in 1982 and went to UCLA for college where I walked onto the football team.

Needles High, River Valley (Ariz.) and Victor Valley Christian

Linebacker

Carlton Baines

(defensive coordinator), Neos Smith (offensive side), Keith Jordan, Way-man Walker and Mark Peterson

UCLA

Getting to coach both my boys at Excelsior, Joe Harrison and my son Nathaniel Rivera.

Terry Donahue, John Wooden and Bob Ladaceur

I love to lift weights and CrossFit.

I love pasta.


Wishing our Eagles a great season!

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Riverside Prep tries to turn things around after two

tough seasons

After two consecutive winless Desert Mountain League cam-paigns, a core of upperclassmen and new head coach Ryan Ver-cruysse hope to turn Riverside Prep into a contender.

“A program isn’t built over-night,” Vercruysse said. “We need to be strong and I think the system I’m putting in place is going to be a foundation for us to build on. I’m planning on being here for the long haul, and we’re excited to start the season.”

The Silver Knights had a prom-ising start to their 2013 season, winning their first three games. Following dominant displays against California School for the Deaf and California Military Insti-tute, Riverside Prep struggled in Desert Mountain League play, los-ing seven consecutive games to end the season.

Vercruysse is Riverside Prep’s third head coach in three years, yet he’s committed to building a successful program for many years to come.

“We will not take defeat light-ly and we will not give up. Every loss will be a lesson, and hopefully we learn from those lessons,” Ver-cruysse said. “My expectation is to build a championship team one step at a time and one game at a time.”

The Silver Knights have found it difficult transitioning from 8- to 11-man football, winning a combined three games over the last two sea-sons. The team lost 10 seniors from last season, including quarterback Justin Sharer and running back Justyce Cardoza.

Vercruysse sees many poten-tial offensive weapons and plans to use the team’s speed to employ

new strategies against opposing defenses.

“We’re going to simplify and run an offense that helps our kids,” Vercruysse said. “We’ve got a lot of running backs and a lot of speed this year. We’re going to exploit that speed and use our basic fun-damentals to overpower some teams.”

Junior quarterback Julio Canas will be a key in Riverside Prep’s new offensive schemes.

“We’re hungry to have a good season and we’re willing to push ourselves to get there,” Canas said. “This year, the offense and defense are running more efficiently and we’re all on the same page. We’re just trying to stick together and

push through, because excellence is our standard.”

Varsity returners Marshall Kuhlmann and Rodger Matlock will anchor the Silver Knights’ ground game this season and have taken on increased leadership roles throughout the offseason.

“We’ve got whole new leaders and a whole new system,” Kuhl-mann said. “I don’t have many expectations, but we’re going to hit. No other teams are gonna bully us ever again because we’re gonna come out and smash them in the mouth.”

“We’ve gotta break the culture that we had from last year and start our new culture this year,” Matlock said. “This year’s offense suits us much better. We’re a smarter school and we should run a smarter offense.”

The Silver Knights open their

season at home against Brethren Christian on August 29. The follow-ing week, Riverside Prep will play at Big Bear. Vercruysse believes that the first two games will set the foundation for his team’s success throughout the rest of the season.

“We’ve got a tough schedule and we’re in a very competitive league,” Vercruysse said. “We want to dominate at every level. Breth-ren Christian is going to be a tough and physical game, then we have Big Bear and then we have league. We’re going to fight and play these hard teams tough because we plan to beat them.

“This team is so ready for some wins and some change. We’re phys-ical and tough and we’re ready to get something out of this season.”

This is my first year.

I want to be com-petitive. I want to take the program to the next level and teach these kids sound funda-mental football. Goals are make the postseason, play a tough schedule, compete and believe in themselves.

A program that teaches, life, integrity and honor, a way for kids to have fun and be involved in some-thing, to be part of a team and

part of a family.

I worked as a Pop Warner coach in college. Once I got my teaching credential, I coached at Pleasant Val-ley High. It was a winning

program, and I really liked it. I played football myself and real-ly enjoyed it. I love coaching and want to be a better coach every day.

Making my stu-

dent-athletes young, respon-sible men and adults. It’s just about X’s and O’s, but the game of life.

Bethel Christian, Lancaster and Chico State.

Avenal, Paradise, Pleas-ant Valley and Champion Christian in Chico.

Center, defensive end and full back.

Heath Kuhlman, Bruce Flynn, Max Phenning, Paul

Callabaro and Rodney Lamar.

The San Diego Char-gers and UCLA.

I took a team (Avenal High School) that hadn’t made the playoffs in 10 years and won my first playoff game with them in 2012.

Rick Prinz, varsity head coach at Paradise, taught me the Wing-T philosophy that I use. I learned how to run a champi-onship-style offense. I still talk to him today.

Golf and watching film.

Spaghetti.


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Silver Valley is coming off first winning record

in five years

— The Silver Valley football team is looking to build on its first winning season in five years and second since 1996.

Last season, the Trojans went 6-4 and finished in a three-way tie for third in the Desert Moun-tain League, but missed out on the playoffs in a tiebreaker.

Head coach John Stewart said Silver Valley had its best offensive production in school history and its second best defense.

The Trojans will be entering their third season under Stew-art, and so far they have com-bined to go 9-11. That’s the best two-year stretch for the school since Andy Campbell left after the 2008 season. Silver Valley won a total of three games in the three seasons between the two coaches.

“I expect us to be around .500. Depending on injuries and how the ball bounces we should be even better,” Stewart said. “We have a lot of kids stepping into positions we lost.”

The Trojans have some holes to fill at the skill positions.

Silver Valley lost starting quarterback Evan Martinez (1,601 passing yards on 137-for-245 passing with 20 touchdowns and 13 interceptions) and run-ning back Daniel Quixchan (1,046 rushing yards and 11 TDs on 152 carries) to graduation, while leading receiver Bailey Rettmann (32 receptions for 400 yards and seven TDs) moved out

of the area.Stewart said he lost six

receivers from last season, but Silver Valley has four receivers who he feels he “can throw in and feel just as comfortable.”

Brian Ili is expected to be the starting running back and get an increased workload. Last year, Ili caught 26 passes for 258 yards and two TDs while car-rying the ball 44 times for 290 yards and three TDs.

“He’s Mr. Everything,” Stew-art said. “We’re expecting him to triple his carries and double his catches. He has the best (foot-ball) IQ on the field.”

Ili, who recorded 123 tackles last year, will also start at mid-dle linebacker in the 3-5 defense. Stewart said they’re lacking in depth and several players will be going both ways.

Stewart said they plan on running the ball more behind an offensive line that returns four starters with good size.

The offensive line returns left guard David Pallante (6-foot-0, 295 pounds), who even carried the ball four times before an injury early last season, tackles Derek Tuebee and Blake Blair and center Chris Hines.

“I expect us to be able to run the ball, because we can,” Stew-art said.

Three quarterbacks are competing for the starting spot

— senior Will Williams, senior Brittian Blackman and sopho-more RJ Henry. Stewart said that the two who lose out on the job will play receiver and two of them will also start in the defen-sive backfield. Stewart said the quarterback depth will enhance the running game because they don’t won’t be dependent on one player.

Unlike last season, when the Trojans only played three home games with five straight on the road, they will play a balanced schedule with five at home. But they still open the season with two road games, starting Aug. 29 at Calipatria.

This is my third season.

I think seeing kids compete game in and game out; be as competitive as we were last year and take a step forward. In three league losses we had meltdowns. We want to take away those mistakes. We want be able to punish the other team and rely on our offensive line.

Dedicated.After I played college

ball, I went back to my high

school and started out there at Stadium High in Tacoma, Washington.

I like helping the kids grow, become better men, ide-ally put them in position suc-ceed not only on the field but in life.

I redshirted at Findlay Universi-ty and spent the next four years at Bethel College (Kansas).

Bonita Vista, Kerney (Wash.), Southwest, Stadium (Wash.), Dakota State, Barstow High

Quarterback and receiver.

Jeff Cole, Martin Dar-land, Kevin Mintun and Jason Agpalza.

Seahawks, Washing-ton and Washington State.

Last year’s overtime win against Desert, 5-foot-2 (Daniel Quixtan) returned an intercep-tion for a TD.

I played and coached under three different hall of fame coaches, Dick Strahm at Find-lay University, Tom Shea at Dakota State and semi-pro coach Stephen Matychowiak and long-time college baseball assistant Jewett Long.

My family and my kids.

Any-where we eat after a win.


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Hesperia Christian returns to varsity football

after layoff

After calling off the 2012 cam-paign right before it started and fielding a junior varsity team in 2013, Hesperia Christian faces quite a challenge heading into this season’s return to varsity 8-man football.

But its that challenge that drives first-year head coach Chris Leontas and his squad.

“We wanted to start from scratch,” Leontas said about last year’s decision to field a junior varsity team. “We didn’t have any-thing to start with, so half of zero is still zero. So what we wanted to do was build the program up from scratch and do things right.”

The first step in that process is building upon last year’s success-ful JV team. The Patriots went 5-2 and some of those games were against varsity teams.

“We got used to that winning feeling,” senior Jared Hays said. “Hopefully that will carry over into this season.”

But Leontas said the Patriots gained something more important than wins and losses: Experience.

“Last year’s team was very freshman heavy, so now all those kids are sophomores and have a solid year of experience under their belts,” Leontas said.

The next step, and one that is almost as important as experience according to Leontas, is prepara-tion and time in the weight room.

“Compared to years past, we are way ahead in terms of strength and hopefully that is going to carry over to being healthier throughout this season,” he said.

One of those players who has

been dedicated to getting better and stronger is senior linebacker/fullback Spencer Hamm. Leontas has chosen Hamm as one of the team’s captains and leaders on defense.

“He has shown the most improvement from his freshman to senior year as a football player,” Leontas said. “He loves the game, and he’s put in a lot of time in the weight room.”

Hamm will anchor the defense.“We didn’t lose anybody on

defense,” Hamm said, “and (Leon-

tas) prepares us for everything. He takes every little scenario that we may face this season defen-sively and puts it all together so we are all well prepared.”

Leading the way offensively is a two-headed monster out of the backfield with Hays and sopho-more Connor Scott.

“They are both fairly inter-changeable and for the (opposing) defense it’s basically pick your poison,” Leontas said. “They both have different running styles, but they both run with reckless abandon.”

Hays is the taller and more elu-sive runner, while Scott is a more traditional power back.

Austin Luton, who was the

JV starter at quarterback last year, will look to receivers Trevor Bragg and Brad Leontas to pro-vide a change of pace through the air.

The Patriots open their season Sept. 5 on the road against Lan-caster Baptist, a member of the powerful Heritage League. Leon-tas said that contest will provide an important measuring stick for his Patriots.

“With no varsity experience to draw from last year, its just hard to put any expectations on this team,” he said. “But I would be very satisfied if we found our-selves competing for the (Agape) League championship this season and battling for a playoff spot.”

Third year as head coach. Worked as an assistant for about four years before that.

As far as wins and losses, I do expect us to try to compete for an Agape League title.

It’s been an uphill battle from not having a sea-son, not having a program.

My wife actually is the cheer coach at the school.

I tagged along with her, saw coach (Dave Booth Sr.). He said, “Hey why don’t you come on out (and coach).” The rest is history. I’ve been with the pro-

gram ever since.

Taking a group of kids with various experiences

in the sport and teaching them and showing them that they can do something. Just watch-ing them all grow together as a team and also as individuals.

Graduated from Hesperia Christian in 1992, UC River-side in 1997 and Loma Linda in 1999.

No

Center and linebacker in high school.

Randy Luton (quar-terbacks, receivers, running backs and corners), Tom Shil-ling (defensive coordinator, offensive and defensive line), Shawn Hays (assistant defen-

sive coordinator).

UCLA

Has to be our first game last year as a JV program. It was a lot of time and energy, blood, sweat and tears brining the program back. We won vs. Lucerne Valley.

Dave Booth Sr. I’m definitely a direct product of his coaching influence.

Just typical guy stuff. Some golf, some fishing, taking the kids to travel ball tournaments. That kind of stuff.

Costco pizza after the game.


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Lucerne Valley reached 8-man

semifinals last season

A year removed from their most successful football season of the last decade, Lucerne Val-ley has high expectations for the upcoming season.

The Mustangs started the 2013 season 11-0, cruising past key opponents on their way to secur-ing their first Agape League title before being knocked out of the CIF-SS 8-Man Division 1 semifi-nals by Coast Union.

“I think that last year gave us a great foundation and expecta-tion for the future,” head coach Chris Klinger said. “Our guys are chomping at the bit trying to replicate that, even though they know it will be harder having lost so many seniors. They understand that if they work together, we can get there.”

The Mustangs lost eight seniors from last year, including star wide receiver/running back Lonye Logan and quarterback Daniel Stratton. They were key pieces last fall, but Klinger believes that the character of his returning players will help the team thrive this season.

“We had rough seasons during our transition from 11- to 8-man football,” Klinger said. “These seniors and juniors were at the tail end of that. They’ve seen the worst of it, and after that we had a .500 year and last year we were undefeated until the semis. That success has helped them breed really great work ethic.”

Seniors Justice Torres and Kameron Marx have watched the program grow during their time at Lucerne Valley. Though both connect the Mustangs’ recent suc-cess to the team’s athleticism and physical prowess, they also attri-bute the team’s determination to the hard work of their coaches.

Marx — who plays several positions including wide receiver and cornerback — said, “Coach (Klinger) is interacting a lot with us. We didn’t have a lot of players a few years ago, and weren’t hit-ting the same pace as we are now. He’s always trying to interact 100 percent with everyone.”

Torres — a tight end and line-backer — said, “Coach has been pulling for our team and for our program for many years. For him to be successful last year, it’s on us to owe it to him and to give every-thing we can for him every day.”

Klinger says his team will

continue to run a spread offense, with the aim of having a balanced attack. With the losses of key athletes who graduated last year, Klinger will adapt much of his offense around the strengths of his returning varsity players.

“As a play-caller, I’m trying to get them in the right positions to be successful a little better than last year,” Klinger said. “It’s the same system, but focused on dif-ferent sets of plays for different players.”

The Mustangs await Sept. 5, when they host Joshua Springs. In last year’s contest between the two teams, Lucerne Valley held on to win 32-30 following a two-point conversion with a minute left in regulation.

“The guys are looking for-ward to Joshua Springs, playing a perennial champion,” Klinger said. “Especially with the success we had last year, they’ll be gunning for us.”

Though the team will be test-ed early and often this season, Klinger has faith in the hard work and commitment to improvement that his team has displayed this offseason.

“I preach to them that if their effort is there, these guys have the commitment and integrity to be very successful,” Klinger said. “I judge their success not by how many games we win, but on the type of men they are by the time they graduate.”

This will be my 13th year.

To compete well with every team that we play. To be in the game at the end of each game.

Family and brotherhood.

I got my first opportunity at Lucerne Valley. I knew going through college that I would look forward to coaching later. I took a $20,000 pay cut for being a first-year teacher. I was tired of

(my job) and wanted to reach out to kids.

The best part is when you can impact a young man’s

life and know that you’ve posi-tively affected him and given him passion. When a kid that I’ve coached shakes my hand at graduation.

Alta Loma High School and undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona.

I was at Webb High School as an assistant for one year as a part-time coach.

When I was young I was a line-man and a tight end. In high school, I was a center and a nose guard. In my varsity years I played defensive end.

Branden Garrity, Stephen War-nock and Joey Hagen.

USC.

Last year, my dog died the night before (we played) Joshua Springs. In the pregame locker room talk, I told my team about

my dog. I told them before the game that I had to tell my wife that I had 15 more boys who were depending on me and noth-ing was going to keep me from doing that. We won and after the game, a captain told me “We’re your boys now.”

My mentor at Lucerne Valley named Doug South. He taught me so much more than I realized in relating to young people and helping teenagers.

I do all kinds of outdoor things. I camp and ride dirt bikes and quads. I love fishing and snow-boarding and hiking.

When we have home games we make cold cut and PB&J sandwiches with bananas and apples.


E D U C A T I O N A L F O U N D A T I O N

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Victor Valley Christian expects to be

more competitive this season

The Victor Valley Christian foot-ball program is built around youth. Though they have not finished a season with a winning record since 2010, the Royals hope to turn things around this year and ascend the ranks of the Agape League.

The Royals had just two upper-classmen on their roster last sea-son, and both are returning as seniors this season. The team is structured around a young core of sophomores and juniors who played key roles on offense and defense last season.

Over the course of the last year, first-time head coach Henry Ramos has seen his players develop on and off the field.

“A lot of our players have a little bit more of a leadership role this season,” Ramos said. “The young-er group last year is much more seasoned and our attitude is dif-ferent. Our kids want to work well together.”

Fresh off of a 2-6 season, includ-ing a 1-3 record in league, the Roy-als will be hitting the road early and often this season. After opening up at home against Sandy Valley, the Royals will play five consecutive away games, including a contest against rival Hesperia Christian. Victor Valley Christian has strug-gled on the road recently, having failed to win an away game in the last three seasons. The Royals are scheduled to play six road games this year.

Not only has the young team’s mentality developed in the last year, but Ramos has seen his team develop much more physically.

“We’re traditionally a smaller team, and I’ve thought we’ve had advantages on speed and ability to march up and down the field,” Ramos said. “We were a much

smaller team last year and still had a competitive year. We are consid-erably stronger and faster than we were at this time a year ago.”

The Royals’ young core is cen-tered around returning captains Ethan Harris, John McEwan and Chris Im.

Harris, a junior quarterback, led the Royals in passing, rushing and total touchdowns last season, and believes his team will improve upon their 2-6 record.

“I expect us to come out and click more this year,” he said. “I think we’ll be able to work well as a team and that we’ll be more funda-mental this season.”

Another key to the Royals’ suc-cess this season will be junior McE-wan, who led the team in all-pur-pose yards last season as a kick returner and running back.

“I’m really looking forward to this season,” McEwan said. “With the discipline that we’re gaining and the training we’ve had, I think we will do very well against all of the teams that we’re playing this year.”

Im, one of the two returning seniors, has impressed his coach throughout preseason workouts.

“I see a new level of intensity in Chris. He’s a true student of the sport,” Ramos said. “He’s grown in speed, size and maturity, and I look forward to seeing him explode on the field this year.”

In years past, the Royals have

found it difficult to maintain a healthy team. Pre-season injuries to key players have frequently derailed Victor Valley Christian’s chances to compete for a league title.

“We’re spending much more time in the weight room trying to prevent injuries,” Ramos said. “I think that we can be competitive with Sandy Valley, and I think our first game will be indicative of our season. If we can be competitive in that game, the rest of the season will be much easier.”

Though Ramos noted that his team is still maturing and the pro-gram continues to rebuild, he holds high hopes for his team this season.

“I think realistically, we are going to be very competitive this year,” he said.


It’s my first year.

We want to change the mentality of the team. We had a rough couple of seasons — just want to change the mentality, make it fun, and have more positive spin during the season. We want to have a more family environment, be more dedicated to each other, and win as a team and lose as a team.

Rebuilding for the future.

Through the city of Victorville summer soccer league. I also work for Options for Youth and helped

with coaching over there.

The devel-opment of the boys, watching them become young man.

I went to Pioneer High, attended University of Phoenix and I’m wrapping up a master’s degree in cross cultural education at National University.

Options for Youth basketball, Victor Valley Christian junior high basket-ball and football, Victor Valley Christian JV basketball head coach and assistant varsity coach.

Linebacker and strong safety on defense, and running back and receiver on offense.

Shawn Lenihan, David Ross and Chris Montes

USC, and I’ve been Raiders fan since 1970.

Watching the light go off when they get it, the excite-ment when they did it.

David Lindsay, former Victor Valley Christian head coach, taught me a lot. He was there for a lot of the reasons I was. His boys and my boys were a part of the program.

Music. I have a mobile DJ business.

Spaghetti

www.highdesertfarmersmarket.com Email: [email protected]

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with eliminating non-nutritional foods and soft drinks loaded with sugar.

REPLACE these items with foods that will increase your energy, build up your stamina and improve your attitude. A positive attitude goes a long way in boosting your

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Documents

Football Section 2014