AUSTIN YU
Prep2Prep Junior Editor

September 2, 2013

On Friday, August 30, four teams from the Central Coast Section (CCS) – the Harker Eagles, the Lynbrook Vikings, the Monta Vista Matadors, and the King’s Academy Knights – met at the year-old Monta Vista football field for the season's first scrimmage. This provided an enriching and highly engaging opportunity for the teams to iron out any wrinkles in their playbook in preparation for the opening of the 2013-2014 football season, which begins Monday.

The four teams faced off with one another playing in 10-play, full-contact exchanges starting from both 40-yard lines. As the scrimmages raged on, every mistake gave each respective team ideas on what they could improve on for the season.

For host Monta Vista, things were looking good. In their first run against Lynbrook, the Matadors were successful in preventing major yardage on defense and able to pressure the Vikings' defensive line on offense. Matador coach Jeff Mueller speculated that much of the team’s success this year will ride on the ability of the team’s non-starters.

“We’re going to be as good as our backups are because we’re not real deep, so in some cases we did real, real good; in some cases we’ve got work and things to do,” says Mueller. “That’s why we have these [scrimmages]--so we know exactly what we have to work on in the coming weeks.”

The King’s Academy Knights were able to conclude the scrimmage with a positive and grown mindset. Coming off a 2-8 season, the Knights looked to the maturity and unity of their players as a much-needed boost for what lays ahead in this year’s season.

Thanks to the influx of returning juniors, coach William Gittens believes the team will be able to communicate effectively on the field, making for strong plays.

"We had some nice plays and some nice tackles and it was good to see our team just rally as a team; we’ve been playing better team ball," he said. "That’s the main thing: if we stay together and play as a team and come out and compete, we’ll have success.”

Though the Harker Eagles had slight difficulty maintaining the pocket for junior quarterback Keanu Forbes, coach Ron Forbes was not concerned.

“The defense always comes around quicker than the offense," Forbes said. "Things actually look pretty good; when the pocket broke down it was usually just minor little mistakes with young guys – we have two sophomores on the offensive line so I think we’re okay.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Forbes added: “We prepare to win every single game and we take them one game at a time. If I told you we were going to lose any games, I wouldn’t be in line with our mission.”

Whereas Lynbrook found areas in which it would like to see improvement, the Vikings are nonetheless optimistic. Even though the team faced difficulty scoring, the Vikings are shooting for a strong start, aiming to "[win] round one because you can't go to playoffs without [it]," said coach Jim Grassi.

In reflection, Grassi felt the Vikings were playing "okay," but saw this as a good thing.

"If we were firing on all cylinders, then I’d be worried because you’ve got nowhere to go but down. So we’re just going to start Monday, coach our butts off, work our butts off and correct what we got wrong," he said.

Each team is feeling optimistic about their chances, as is expected at the start of the season. Mueller reflects these shared sentiments across the teams in his ambitions for Monta Vista.

“The goal is always to go ahead and win a championship and the goal is always to make CCS, that’s always the goal whether you’re in football or in anything else,” he said. “We’re just going to see if we can make that happen.”

Most of the teams will begin their first games next week, with Harker at an away game against James Lick Friday at 7:00 PM, Monta Vista at home against Overfelt at 7:30 PM, and Lynbrook at Mount Pleasant at 7:00 PM. The King’s Academy will play its first regular season game on September 11 at San Jose High School at 7:00 PM.