MARK MOLINA | Staff Writer
RAYMONDVILLE— For the Raymondville Bearkats, their secondary has made opposing offenses think twice about passing the ball down field.
The defense has compiled 17 interceptions this year and is led by the senior duo made up of free safety Leonardo “LJ” Santana and cornerback Andy Chavarria.
Both are tied for the team lead in interceptions with five each; two more than corner Sergio Gonzalez Jr. has this season.
However, Gonzalez is only a junior.
Right now, the senior duo of Chavarria and Santana like to think of themselves as students and have been studying to improve their craft since middle school, making the chemistry and the ability to mentally prepare easier.
“Clicking is easy because we’ve been around each other and playing a lot of the players on these offenses since seventh grade,” Santana explained.
A lot of it is studying film, which Santana says is probably more important than physical practices.
Chavarria, for instance, admits to spending hours dissecting film.
“We watch a lot of film before practice, after practice and when we’re at home,” said the senior corner. “We do it so we can learn to defend those offenses, memorize their routes, learn their techniques and figure out a way to slow them down.”
As a result, the Raymondville coaches have become confident that they can leave their secondary in man coverage and try to stuff the run in a run-heavy district.
While it’s not ideal, it may be necessary.
“We try not to leave those guys one-on-one and we try to figure out different ways to give them some help, but there are some teams who can flat out run the football,” Raymondville head coach Frank Cantu said.
“When we need that support, we’ll put them out there. Santana is our free safety who played outside linebacker for us also and is the most aggressive hitter and Andy (Chavarria) does a great job out there defending. We’ll try and get them help when we can, but we’ll put them out there from time to time.”
This week, that will be especially important as they face one of the better rushers in the district in Rio Hondo’s Marco Garate.
Garate is second only to Raymondville’s Miguel Tristan in rushing in the district.
With a solid Rio Hondo run game and the ability to pass if necessary, the Bearkats will like to make the Rio Hondo offense one-dimensional if possible and take their chance stopping the run.
It’s a challenge Santana and Chavarria will not fear; they know it’s what the team needs to help them come out on top.
“When we cover our guys, it makes it easy for the linebackers to get to the ball,” Chavarria said. “We want them not to worry about the ball being thrown because we’ll be there to stop them.”
With the team behind the secondary, they can play with confidence.
“We go man-to-man a lot of the time and it feels good to know we get that trust from our coaches,” Santana said. “We need to see what happens on Friday, but you need to focus on the ‘W.’ Never go into a game thinking you’re going to lose.”