The Sobrato High football program is looking to begin its second
year of varsity competition with a bang.
Hollister – The Sobrato High football program is looking to begin its second year of varsity competition with a bang.
One of the first steps toward making that happen was during the Team First football camp that the Bulldogs took part in at San Benito High on Friday and Saturday.
The camp, which featured two practice sessions Friday and three on Saturday, included Sobrato, host San Benito, Lincoln of San Jose, St. Francis of Watsonville and Pajaro Valley and was geared for each team’s own development, while working in scrimmages and drills with the other teams.
First-year Sobrato coach Dan Brown was excited about his team’s enthusiasm and performance at the camp.
“I was very impressed with the level of enthusiasm and effort,” Brown said. “The kids wanted to be there. It was a good up tempo. We were always the first team to get out and get warmed up.”
Each practice began with a 40 minute team session, which Brown said could be used to get ready for scrimmage opponents or for group or individual team work.
The Bulldogs took 65 players to the camp, 39 varsity and 26 frosh-soph players.
Juvenal Rodriguez, an offensive guard and inside linebacker, was named the top player at the camp for the varsity team.
Nick Dubil, a two-way sophomore lineman, earned the top player honors for the frosh-soph team.
“He played all the snaps, played both ways and kicked some butt down there,” Brown s aid of Dubil.
Two of Sobrato’s top returning players, Eric Woodruff and Jonathan Redmond, both were not in attendance at the camp. Woodruff had rolled his ankle the day before.
Brown said the team went into the camp looking at their absence as a negative, but left happy that some other players had a chance to get a look at action.
“It kind of worked out,” Brown said. “We got to see some other kids and let them go.”
Brown said one of the highlights of the camp was during the inside running drill against San Benito on the second day, when the Bulldogs went toe-to-toe with the Haybalers.
In a later goalline stand drill, Sobrato scored on two of its three possessions it had the ball.
During the one possession the Bulldogs didn’t score, running back Chris Montoya caught a play-action pass and was hit by two tacklers at the 5-yard line. He muscled his way forward and tried to extend the ball into the end zone but was stopped inches short.
The defense also shined during that drill, allowing touchdowns on only one of the three opponent’s possessions.
“It was relentless,” Brown said of his defense’s efforts.
Brown said Lincoln coach Kevin Collins, who is a good friend of his and whose team played Sobrato last year, told him that the difference between the Bulldogs this year and last year was “night and day.”
“There’s an attitude that you need,” Brown said. “You have to have an intensity about you. We’ve been on our kids from Day 1. This is a whole other level. We have got to have an energy level and some may not be used to it.”
Brown added that he was curious to see how is team would react to playing against some good competition.
“We reacted how a team should react,” he said. “We are going in the right direction.”
He also stressed the importance of taking advantage of each practice day.
“If you miss a day of school, you can go back and get the make up work. In football, you can’t that day back, so it’s real critical,” Brown said.
Overall, Brown is looking forward to this season.
“We’re still going to be young, but I’m real encouraged,” he said.
Brown also thinks the move from the Tri-County Athletic League to the West Valley Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League should help a new program such as Sobrato.
“I think it will help us, because the BVAL, which is a big conference, has the three tiered levels,” Brown said. “Being a new school, like Sobrato, I think it’s beneficial.”
The Bulldogs will play their first season in the third level division of the BVAL, but Brown hopes to see his team move its way up the ladder.
“We want to be an A-level team,” he said.
