Working toward consistency

August 25, 2010

By David Selig
The Winchester Star       

WINCHESTER

Returning to the field the day after scrimmaging Park View last week, the James Wood High School football team would have had a reasonable excuse for having a lifeless practice.

After all, the Colonels had shown several encouraging signs in that scrimmage, facing a team that also went to the playoffs a year ago.

But the Colonels have set out to not use any of those excuses, and with "consistency" the buzzword of their preseason, every minute leading up to the Sept. 3 season-opener has been treated as a valuable commodity.

"We want to prepare them for September, October, and November now," third-year coach Mike Bolin said. "You can't get prepared for November in October. You've got to get prepared for November in July and August."

The Colonels have had a much more physical and demanding preseason than usual, and the ultimate goal is establishing consistency for the regular season.

That was the key quality missing for a team that started 5-0 last fall, went 1-4 in the second half, then rallied to win its first playoff game in 39 years with a 27-25 victory over Loudoun County in the Region II Division 4 quarterfinals.

"We've got to get consistent in all facets of the game," Bolin said. "We've had a real physical camp. We've done a lot of conditioning. We've really pushed the guys about as far as we can push them. We're really trying to wear them down early so we can build them back up and get them ready to go.

"The kids, I think, want to be more physical than last year."

After losing record-breaking running back Brock Lockhart and three-year starting quarterback Trae Tinsman, the Colonels will need show a certain toughness, and they're already developing confidence in their new personnel. The competition at running back has been particularly fierce, as Joel McGreevy, Chris Skinner and Mark Collie lead the race for carries in what is expected to be a more balanced attack than last season.

Senior fullback Cory Schrock will also be a big part of the rushing attack - as as runner and blocker.

"I think we'll spread the ball out more this year and not key on one or two players like we did last year," said senior Matt Copley, who takes over as the starting quarterback after leading the team with 25 receptions as a wideout last year. "I think that'll help us out later in the game. We'll have more energy."

Junior Chad Potter is the top receiver on the depth chart, and sophomore T.J. Bruce and Skinner could also factor in as pass-catchers.

Second-team all-district tight end David Alaniz returns, and he'll be joined along the line by fellow seniors Noah Cundall (right tackle), Justin La Master (right guard), Chase Tyler (left guard) and Jeff Martin (left tackle), and junior center R.J. Miller.

Defensively, Alaniz (end), Cundall (end), Tyler (tackle) and La Master (tackle) are likely to start on the front four.

Mark Bean (inside), Cote Funkhouser (inside) and McGreevy (outside) are expected to fill three of the four linebacker spots.

The secondary is the least experienced group of the defense, but it will be anchored by senior Tripp Lewis, who can play either cornerback or safety depending on where the other players that win jobs are most comfortable.

Bolin said Skinner - who is the Colonels' point guard in basketball and did not play football his sophomore year - could become a standout defensive back thanks to his quick feet and ball-hawking instincts.

"We definitely have a good corps of linebackers and DBs, that's for sure," Copley said. "I mean, it's hard to run the ball against them.

"Each one of them stepped up in the offseason and worked really hard in the weight room. They got a lot bigger, you can tell. And they're going to be a really big part of the game this year."

Last year, James Wood's defense allowed more points and yards than any team in the area, but that was also a product of inconsistency, as there were times when the unit was stout.

"Last year we sort of waited," Bean said. "During the first half we would kind of let [our opponent] run down the field, and then during the second half we would pick it up. ... We can't wait as much this year."

A perfect example of that came in the Division 4 semifinal at Sherando. The Warriors reached the end zone on their first two drives but didn't score again in their 13-7 win.

"We didn't play too bad against Sherando in the second playoff game, but those two first drives killed us," Bean said.

That comes back to the lesson of consistency that Bolin and his staff are trying to stress.

And it might be the difference between contending for a district title and fighting just to get into the playoffs for a fourth straight year.

But as "weird" as last season was (Bolin also described the year as "hit and miss," "off and on," and "hot and cold") the Colonels took care of one serious piece of business.

No longer will they be searching for a postseason win that had eluded them for decades.

Each season from this point forward will instead be about building on that success and creating a new set of historical landmarks.

"I think the kids really realized last year that we can win a big game," Bolin said. "We had won a couple big games in 2008 - we beat Millbrook early in the season and we beat Sherando - but we didn't let that translate into postseason play.

"Last year we hit a skid where we didn't play well, but we came back and we won that playoff game. And that was really big for our program."

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