San Benito football team lays groundwork for upcoming season in
spring practice
Hollister – It’s a sunny afternoon in late May and the pigskin is flying through the air.
Even though its season opener is more than three months away, the San Benito football team is sweating through the final stretches of a full-squad workout. It’s spring practice – a two-week window when returning players take the field to practice technique and plays, while also working on conditioning.
“Spring football practice is the laying of the ground. Day One,” ‘Balers head coach Chris Cameron said. “For me, the biggest thing is everyone starts to get on the same page. The team starts to unify and hopefully, leaders start to emerge.”
With a doozy of a senior class moving on – Karson Klauer, Vinnie Sardam, Ryan Dunn, Jeff Weltz and so on – the San Benito varsity team will have a very different look in 2006. The eight practices that concluded last Thursday gave Cameron and the rest of the ‘Balers’ coaching staff their first opportunities to gauge the make-up of the team on the field.
“We’ve got a lot of holes to fill,” Cameron said. “We’ve got a lot of young men that have put four years into the program that are moving on. … Defensive line and offensive line – those are probably my two biggest areas of concern.”
“It’s going to be a real challenge this year – a gigantic challenge,” the San Benito coach continued. “We definitely have our work cut out for us. The new kids, new faces are going to have to step in and compete.”
One of those new faces, freshman Sam Doty, said spring practice has shown the underclassmen what it takes to be on the Haybaler varsity team this season.
“For the sophomores and freshmen that have been practicing, it’s learning how full speed varsity level is,” said Doty, who played on the JV squad this past season. “How fast they go, how quick we have to be.”
Following in the footsteps of his ‘Baler alum brothers Billy, Cal and Ty, Doty knows he has something if he is to make the varsity team.
“It just depends how hard I work for it,” said Doty, an offensive and defensive lineman. “My blood, guts and desire for varsity. I think it would be a great privilege to be on varsity as a sophomore.”
The spring practices are also the opportunity for returning players, such as junior Carlos Ramos, to prove that they are deserving of larger roles in the coming season.
“We had a lot of studs last year, so it was kind of hard to get in,” Ramos said. “But this year, my senior year, it’s our year – my last year. I just want to give everything I’ve got – not just for myself, but for my teammates.”
As the whistle blows to signal the end of practice, returning running back Tim Lango hustles over and shares his enthusiasm about the team’s prospects.
“We’re looking good,” Lango said. “We’re looking better each day. We’re probably equal from this time last year. We’re a little smaller than we were last year, but we have the heart. We have the work ethic.”
That desire will be an essential quality for a team that a monumental task in front of it. After winning the Central Coast Section Large School Division Championship last December, the ‘Balers know that every team they face in 2006 will be gunning for them.
“We have a big red target on our chests,” Lango related.
Cameron said one of the coaches’ constant missions is to get the new players to understand the attitude and dedication they need to realize that championship mentality.
“We’re impressing that upon them,” the San Benito coach said. “All the new guys coming on the team, ‘You’re living off the name of former players. You guys have to bear the cross of their success.’
“We’ve got to earn our keep around here real fast.”
