by Maria Garcia and Damaris Malave
Tonight at 7pm the varsity football team takes on the Highland Owls at Gus stadium. Before kickoff, here are some things fans need to know about the showdown.
New head coach, Juan Morales came to Holmes from Highlands last season, and is ready to take on his former team.
“Highlands bases their offense around one central player, their running back. They have a lot of players returning from last year that are really good in terms of understanding the game of football. They’re going a little away from our system in what we put in originally last year defensively and play a regular 4-2-5 defense. We’re planning on taking advantage of that,” Morales said.
New co-offensive coordinator Sean Salinas coached with Morales at Highlands last year along with a handful of other coaches now on staff, and he used to play at Holmes during his high school career. Salinas believes that what Highlands wants to do on offense will be a little different than what they coached last year as well.
“I think they have this thing called H-speed. We didn’t put it in, but supposedly they have it. I don’t know exactly what it is, but if it involves speed, we have speed of our own too. They also have a lot of young people on the field defensively, and they’re probably going to be represented the most by their two interior linemen,” Salinas said.
Holmes senior defensive end Ricardo Luna, shares his own insight about tonight’s game.
“It’s high expectation from the coaches. It’s personal, and since it’s their old team, we have to work even harder to beat them and show that we’re more worthy of him being here,” Luna said.
Senior linebacker Benny Cruz, explains he wants to see his teammates put in the same intense effort they put in last week against Sam Houston.
“Everybody that played put everything they had out there on the field. When they came back, everybody was sore, bruised, and a lot of people were bleeding, but they put everything they had out there,” Cruz said.
Junior running back DQ Haney played a large part in last week’s win, and hopes to set the tone again this week.
“We are going to execute, execute and have fun,” Haney said.
Another offensive leader from last week, junior quarterback Jacob Longoria, knows the game plan against Highlands as well.
“We’re going to try and run the ball on them and tire them out, and if anything, go to the passing game and hopefully be successful then,” Longoria said.
Coach Morales hopes fans will show up for the game tonight to see two great team go at it.
“You can expect a lot of high intensity and enthusiasm from both sides. Those boys want to come out and beat us only because they know us as coaches and how far they’ve come with confidence in themselves. We’re on our way to becoming very, very good. In the end it will be something to smile about,” Morales said.
The game kicks off at Gustafson stadium at 7pm tonight, and students can come out for the student-led tailgate before the game at 5pm at the parking lot across the highway from the stadium where the Fudruckers used to be located to get in the pre-game spirit.