San Benito High football coach Chris Cameron had two objectives entering last Friday’s home scrimmage: Come out of it with everyone healthy and make sure his players were physical from start to finish.
Mission accomplished.
“I think we made it through the night where no one got hurt, and I thought our kids played well, just manning up and playing,” Cameron said.
The Haybalers play their season opener at Sac-Joaquin Section power Hilmar on Friday. The Yellowjackets went 13-1 last year, losing to Central Catholic-Modesto 24-10 in the SJS Division IV championship game.
San Benito finished 7-6 in 2013, dropping a 37-23 decision to Milpitas in the Central Coast Section Division I championship game. So why are the Balers traveling 67 miles to play a team in the Central Valley?
It was the only game they could get. It took three months for Cameron, who had already filled out all but one game of the 2014 schedule last November, to schedule a fourth and final non-league contest.
San Benito had opened up the season against Pioneer in the last couple of years, but the San Jose school no longer wanted to continue the series. Like trying to predict how a college football player will do in the NFL, there is no exact science in scheduling non-league games at the prep level.
Cameron had several verbal agreements with CCS teams over the phone only to see them back out later. Basically, nothing is finalized unless it’s in writing.
“I was looking for that last game for two months,” he said. “So one Sunday night in February I’m calling everyone from the North Coast Section, the Northern Section, the San Joaquin Valley and even the Southern Section, schools from San Luis Obispo south. Just anyone who was advertising they needed a game, I was calling. The next morning I got a call from the Hilmar AD (athletic director) saying they needed a game. So two days later we had it all contracted out.”
Cameron’s hard work paid off nicely as the Balers get to play a solid Yellowjackets program that has won 25 games in the last two years. Speaking of solid, Serra-San Mateo, the defending CCS Open Division champion, was clearly the best team in a scrimmage that included Gilroy and North Monterey County.
“It was good to have those (Serra) guys here because we’re probably not going to see any team at all like them during the season,” Cameron said. “They’ve got speed all over the field, they’re well coached and they hit a couple of deep shots on us. They’re better than us, but I thought our guys did a good job of just physically holding their own.”
Even though Cameron was pleased with the overall effort of the team, the same couldn’t be said of the squad’s ball protection. In four series—one each against Gilroy and NMC and two against Serra—the Balers committed five turnovers, which was a source of the team’s downfall a year ago.
“We hurt ourselves real bad with the turnovers,” Cameron said. “We’ve been focusing so much on ball security, but we didn’t do well at holding onto the ball at all.”
Cool Melo
Talked with standout defensive tackle J.J. Melo after the scrimmage, and he was plenty excited going up against Serra’s outstanding left tackle, Jack Dreyer, a 6-foot-8, 290-pound Stanford commit.
It was a powerhouse matchup, with the hulking Dreyer blocking the 6-5, 240-pound Melo.
“It was fun trying to rush the quarterback against him, because you want to go up against the best,” said Melo, who, like Dreyer, is growing into his body. “It just felt good to hit someone else, and I can’t wait to play Hilmar.”
Melo had a busy offseason, attending four camps, including a four-day camp in Reno. At only 16, Melo has drawn rave reviews from Cameron, who said Melo’s best days are later down the line.
Since Melo never played a down of football until his freshman year, coupled with the fact that he’s still growing—“I finally hit 6-5 and the doctors said I might reach 6-7,” Melo said—it’s no wonder Melo has been given the tag of a player whose potential seems limitless.
“But I know that means nothing if I don’t keep on working hard,” Melo said. “Football was a school sport I needed where I could go out and hit people and not get in trouble for it.”
Melo is also a standout on the wrestling team, finishing 3-2 in last year’s CCS tournament competing in the 220-pound division. He counts both sports as his favorites, and doesn’t know if he’ll be competing in one—or both—at the college level.
