YUMA, AZ – With a record-setting quarterback, hard-nosed backfield, and trio of linebackers gone, Cibola High enters the season with a lot more key unknowns than a year ago.
“We are really young,” Cibola head coach Lucky Arvizo said Tuesday evening outside of his office. “We had a pretty heavy senior class last year.”
Not only were they senior-laden in 2015, but the Raiders (8-3) were also successful. They produced three shutouts. They scored 30 or more points in five of their 11 games. And they capped the regular season with five consecutive wins.
A number of the players on the current roster were around for all of that, but as Arvizo pointed out: “Some might be seniors but they don’t have that varsity playing experience yet, until we get a couple of games under our belt.
“A couple years ago, we were in the same boat. We were really young and still learning. There’s always years where we have a lot of new faces… This year it’s a little more than others, but the guys have been working really hard in the summer and that’s impressed us as a coaching staff because they’ve realized they maybe need to catch up and learn a little more.”
But practice and game experience are two different things.
The Raiders will get their first real taste Friday night as they open the 2016 season at Horizon of Scottsdale just eight days after scrimmaging crosstown rival Kofa. They came out of the two-hour dress rehearsal with some newfound knowledge about the roster, but more or less it just served as a confirmation for what the coaching staff expected.
Quarterback Curtis Wolfe, who is replacing Lucky Arvizo Jr., was effective. Jesus Romero showed why he will get a bulk of the carries as Cibola’s fleet-footed starting running back. And Jalen Thompson and Isaak Contreras earned game-day carries as well, according to Arvizo.
Wolfe, a lanky 6-foot-4 senior, threw two passes last season, but will have a number of targets in receivers Gabriel Claudio and Miguel Alvarado and 6-foot-5 tight end Mark Walton.
“Our goal is to be balanced,” Arvizo said. “Obviously, when we get in the game we take what the defense gives us. But we always go into the game looking to be balanced.”
Cibola, which is 48-28 in the past seven seasons (six playoff appearances), has the pieces to put up points offensively. However, Arvizo is anxious to see how the defense stacks up when the lights come on.
“If we can come out and play as well defensively as we did last year,” he said. “Any time you have a good defense you always have an opportunity to win. Even if you have some missteps offensively, you have a defense that can help you out there.”
The defensive line appears to be intact with a rotation in place that could help ease the transition to varsity for the team’s three new linebackers, whom Arvizo said are still learning. And where the defense lacks depth, they might make up for in talent.
“We’ve got a pretty good rotation on our defensive line. That probably could be a strength of our defense,” Arvizo added. “Our [defensive backs], even though we aren’t a real deep group, our first four DBs are pretty solid.”
But there’s no way of knowing for sure until they are boarding the bus for Scottsdale Friday.
