By ANDREW CRUM,Staff Writer
St. Joseph Academy has three safeties that are the strength of the Bloodhounds’ defense.
Seniors Joey Navarro and Dave Lapeyre and junior Emilio De La Garza are the last line of defense and ready to accept the challenge to lead the defense this season.
“They are the heart and soul of our defense, they are the backbone, we feed off their level of intensity,” St. Joseph coach Tino Villarreal said. “We’re really excited to see what they’re going to give us this year.
“As they go, our defense goes.”
After a subpar performance in Week 1, the trio responded against Lyford in Week 2 with four interceptions among them — two were returned for touchdowns by Navarro and Lapeyre — and a fifth interception by one of the Bloodhounds’ linebackers was tipped by one of the safeties initially.
The Bloodhounds’ safeties are similar to middle linebackers on other defenses.
“In our defensive system, they’re the playcallers,” Villarreal said. “They signal everything in, the call coverage based on what we saw on film.”
But all three are humble and don’t want to be singled out as the strongest part of the defense.
“It’s an honor, but we’re a team and I think we all work together to achieve the same goal,” Navarro said. “So everyone on the defense can be considered the backbone.”
Coming into the season, Navarro and Lapeyre were expected to take on a larger leadership role as both are also team captains. But De La Garza has been a pleasant surprise for St. Joseph. He is making his transition to the varsity this season and won a starting role as well.
“(The transition) has been good, everyone welcomed me,” De La Garza said. “The players and coaches have been great, too.”
Sean Rudder was a safety for the team last season, but he moved to Indiana in the offseason so there was a question mark for St. Joseph about who was going to replace him.
“Emilio has been a surprise to us,” Villarreal said. “He has done a phenomenal job stepping into the role as a varsity player and a starter.
“The three really work well as a unit.”
And the trio has bonded between friendship and football.
“It’s fun working closely with Joey and Emilio because we’re really close friends,” Lapeyre said. “The whole team is all together, we have fun together. It’s a good group.”
Going forward, the three safeties know they need to play better to prepare for the upcoming TAPPS district season. The Bloodhounds hope to become more aggressive on defense, particularly in their remaining non-district games.
“Every team in the Valley is a great challenge, and we have a lot of respect for them,” Lapeyre said. “We just need to be the more aggressive team out there and remember our assignments.”
His fellow senior agreed.
“And we need to communicate more,” Navarro said. “We all need to work together in unison to achieve the same goal.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.