Warrior fans got a preview of all three football teams during Saturday's inter-squad scrimmage at Coy Burnett Field. Above, sophomore
Bobby Howell, #6 with a green helmet, took several snaps at QB as the Warriors ran full contact drills. Photo by Mike Duffy, The Tehachapi News.
Posted on August 23, 2010, by Tom Shea, The Tehachapi News Warriors Show Depth in Scrimmage
Mountain Football Impressive in Tune-Up
To Upcoming Regular Season
In a first look prior to taking on opposition this Friday, Mountain Football flexed their strength in numbers with a 65-player team completing an intersquad scrimmage at Coy Burnett Field last Saturday morning.
With approximately 500 spectators taking a break from Mountain Festival activities to check out the new-look Warriors, Tehachapi's first-through-third team offenses and defenses showcased their skills to the crowd.
"We have a lot of kids that are fighting for spots. There is some good competition," said head coach Steve Denman. "We're putting our kids in different positions right now, mixing up the teams and seeing what each one of them can do. We like what we see. There's been improvement."
The most watched position battle is at quarterback, where senior Levi Garrett and sophomore Bobby Howell have been alternating snaps with the first and second units. Both players combined for three completions in the scrimmage, with Howell hitting Cory Lange on two completions and Garrett a first down toss to Travis Farewell.
"We have some players in the defensive backfield and upfront that are getting after it," added Denman. "There's good intensity and good communication. We need that to be successful."
Making plays in the secondary during the scrimmage was a host of Warriors, some who included Bobby Cooley, Michael Perez, Levi Kill, Kash Knudson and Sergio Garcia.
Up front, Zach Timm, Logan Smith, Colt Murrow and Cameron King had good penetration, while Tevin Paykel also showed strong moves at the line of scrimmage by registering multiple backfield tackles.
At linebacker, Marcus Curiel, Ray Cross, Blake Delwisch, Adam Bullard and Travis Farewell kept the offensive speedbacks at bay.
"We'll know a lot about our players in our upcoming scrimmage (this Friday)." Denman said. "It always helps going against other players and a different (offensive) system."
On the offensive line, Tehachapi featured Brent Bernacchi, Andrew Jimenez, Jack Blewett, Niko Taliulu, John Porter, Davin Blain, Armando Perez and Cesar Meza, while in the backfield strong runs were turned in by Phil Rhodes, Michael Lowder, Brian Castaneda, Cory Lange, Wyatt Vance and Jorge Garcia.
"We still have much to do, but we like what we see so far," said Denman. "As long as our guys remained focused and work hard we're only going to get better."
The Warriors, Braves and Indians will host their first contest this Friday afternoon against West and Highland in a controlled scrimmage at Coy Burnett Field. The jayvee and freshmen games will start at 3pm while the varsity contest will commence at 5pm.
Junior Varsity and Freshmen
The underclassmen Mountain Football teams also took to the field for scrimmage action last Saturday, with strong play coming from a handful of players from the jayvee and freshmen teams.
The junior varsity team will feature 11 freshmen this season, including sophomore standouts Dalton Scaggs (quarterback) and Blake Waters, Barry Jones and Ian Neufeld (running back).
Freshmen called up to the jayvee team include David Carter (linebacker), Steven Cross (defensive back), Ty Curry (running back and linebacker), Dallin Hansen (tight end), Calvin Herman (defensive end), Ben Johnson (running back and defensive back), Dakota Medovitch (tight end and defensive back), Bobby Sharp (quarterback), Dylan Teeter (running back and linebacker), Christian Terle (linebacker) and Skylar Valencia (runnin back and defensive back).
Playing for the Indians and expected to be strong contributors are Evan Hackney (quarterback and linebacker), Daniel Zieglar (quarterback and linebacker), John Gonzales (tight end and defensive end), Jacob Angevine (runningback) and Dylan Smith and Ben Buckley (offensive and defensive line), among a host of others.
