If youth has defined Sobrato’s season thus far, coach Albert King wants to redefine the Bulldogs.
He’s tired of his team holding on to inexperience as an excuse. Now six games in, King expects his boys to play like they’ve been there before.
“These young men have to stop using their youth as a crutch and just say, “You know what? We’re (six) games into the season now, we’re veterans, we’ve got to start acting and playing like that,” King said. “That’s the big thing right now.”
But sometimes he can’t escape it. During one play against Leland last Saturday, Sobrato’s coaching staff looked out and saw 10 sophomores lined up on defense. The 11th was a junior.
“Although I’m not happy (with the loss), I’m not sad,” King said of the prospects for the rest of the season.
King, however, is still seeing glimmers of maturity.
Late in the fourth quarter against Leland, one of Sobrato’s players got into a row with one of Leland’s boys. Seeing the incident escalating — which could have drawn personal fouls at the very least for his teammate — Pedro Aragon pulled his buddy away from the situation.
“We had the referee come along to the side of us and said ‘that’s the best teamsmanship I’ve seen all year. The way he handed him, the way he talked to him,’” King said. “Those are the signs we are looking for, the maturity we’re looking for, because we measure wins and losses in a completely different way. At the end of the day we want a W; we want more points than the other team. But we’re willing to take some exceptions to that and I personally feel the Leland game was a victory for us.”
The Bulldogs are 0-6 but are coming off one of their best performances of the year along with the El Toro Bowl.
Sobrato held Leland’s best runner to 56 yards through 46 minutes of the game. Until that point, the Bulldogs trailed by 10 and had been moving the ball relatively well.
But once Liam Saito broke free for a 48-yard touchdown score with 1:51 to play, Sobrato’s hopes were dashed.
Despite the Bulldogs’ 24-6 loss, the coaching staff reiterated to the kids the game was much closer than the score indicates.
While trailing 3-0 in the second quarter, Sobrato marched to the Leland 15 and threatened to take a 6-3 lead until a false start and a sack dashed the hopes.
“One person, two people, three people, whatever, they lose focus. That’s unfortunately when we are in the red zone,” King said. “We put the ball in the red zone and we get three points or a touchdown, the complexity of that game is completely different.”
Still, Sobrato trailed 10-0 at the half as Leland capped off a 78-yard drive with a touchdown with 30 seconds left to play in the second quarter.
The Bulldogs came out of the half on fire, driving 62 yards with Darius Wheeler driving it home from three yards out to cut the deficit to 10-6.
“Our drives are becoming longer, starting to chew up more clock. This is the thing that we ultimately wanted to do this year,” King said.
A misplayed screen brought the game back to 10 points at 17-6 setting up Leland’s final drive to put the contest on ice.
As Sobrato moves on to Santa Teresa, the team will face a Saints squad that is licking its chops to get back into the win column.
After sprinting to a 2-0 start, putting up more than 40 points in each game, Santa Teresa has fallen on hard times.
The Saints are 0-4 since that time and have been outscored 158-63. In each of those losses, Santa Teresa has given up at least 30 points.
Still, King is focusing on what the Saints did in the first two games as evidence that this is a team that no one should take lightly.
“Their record does not indicate how good they can be,” King said. “They do some things really, really well and there are some things they struggle at — very similarly to us. But they’ve got some play makers on that team.”
King said the offensive and defensive lines jump off the ball quickly and will keep his boys on their toes.
“They don’t lack for effort, I guarantee that,” King said.
King said you can look at six or seven plays by Santa Teresa that could have changed the outcome of any of those games.
“I think it’s the way the ball has bounce in those games,” King said. “I think (Coach Nick) Alfano would say the same thing: If they make a couple blocks here or there, run to the right hole (and) make a couple pass plays, things may be different for them.”
Apart from the lines, King said Santa Teresa likes to run the ball and has a quarterback who can tuck it and run it.
“Once they figure it out, they will be just fine. They definitely don’t lack for athletes,” King said.
