First week of football practice draws 87

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

Practice for Fallbrook High School’s football team began July 30, and the first week of practice included 87 players.

Head coach Ross Johnson plans to keep 50 of those players on the varsity while placing 37 on the junior varsity squad. Fallbrook will not have a freshman team this year. “We didn’t end up getting enough freshman turnout this summer to go to three teams,” Johnson said.

Approximately 15 of the varsity players are returning starters from last year’s team. “It was a pretty young team last year,” Johnson said.

The players voted on team captains Aug. 6. A committee of 10 captains allows for representation by the senior, junior, and sophomore classes. The senior captains are Angel Angulo, Kaleb Collings, Sean Farish, Thomas McSheehy, Anthony Thomas, and Matt Wilson. George Aguilar, Chris Bausch, and James Jones are the junior captains. Evan Thomas is the sophomore captain.

The Warriors had nine practices in the first six days including two practices each day Aug. 1, 3, and 5. “We were happy with the first week of practice,” Johnson said. “I thought it was good for us.”

Some of the most talented varsity players will participate on both offense and defense, but the roster size eliminates the necessity for players to see action on both sides of the ball. “As long as we’re able to stay relatively healthy, we shouldn’t have a whole lot of guys going both ways,” Johnson said.

The Warriors have been practicing against each other, an Aug. 11 scrimmage at San Marcos High School will provide experience against an opponent whose formations and strategies are not known to the players. The junior varsity scrimmage will begin at 4 p.m. and the varsity scrimmage kickoff time is 6 p.m.

“All of us are really excited to see how the kids compete,” Johnson said.

The first actual game for Fallbrook will be Aug. 19 at University City High School. “We’re just excited to get going and really test ourselves,” Johnson said.