By CLAIRE CRUZ, Staff Writer
LYFORD — Lyford football coach and athletic director Israel Gonzalez wanted his Bulldogs to stay under the radar when they began practicing Sept. 1.
With three weeks of practice and one week in full pads under their belts, the Bulldogs are feeling like this team will be anything but under the radar when it hits the field for competition. Gonzalez said his hard-working group has been putting in good effort since Day 1 and that they haven’t had any issues with COVID-19.
“They’ve been doing great,” Gonzalez said. “They did a good job of staying in shape with Zoom and the things we were able to do. Putting pads on is definitely a different animal and they felt that the first couple of days, but I think we’re getting into a good groove.”
The Bulldogs made some changes to their practice routines to adapt to safety protocols and guidelines. Gonzalez said they’re utilizing more of the open spaces around the practice field to keep groups apart, and they’re staggering arrivals. Lyford does have JV players practicing, and Gonzalez said the intention is to have the JV and middle school teams competing, though some other districts have elected to hold varsity-only fall athletics.
“We’ve made several adjustments to make sure that our kids are safe,” Gonzalez said. “We have mandatory handwashing stations and masks and social distancing, all the good stuff. We’re disinfecting the lockers — we got these foggers that we use almost every day in the locker room, and we’ve been doing that and so far everything has been good.”
The Bulldogs are kicking off competition with a scrimmage next Friday at Banquete. Lyford has a lot of experienced seniors ready to take advantage of their opportunity to play one final season, and one of those to watch is quarterback Cayleb Klostermann. He’s returning after suffering a season-ending injury during the first game of 2019, and he’s ready for a big year.
“I feel like I haven’t missed a beat. I feel good, I feel healthy and I’m ready to go,” Klostermann said. “We want to come home with a district championship. My freshman year we brought one home and we haven’t done it since, so that’s definitely our goal, at the very minimum.
“We look good, and we feel confident,” he added. “We know we’re going to have a challenge because the teams in our district got a jump on us by about a month, but we’re excited and we’re just happy to be out here. We’re seeing a few schools getting shut down around here, so it feels extra good to be out here and just to get back to normal.”
Seniors Devon Mendoza and Louis DeVries are a couple of other players from whom Gonzalez is expecting big things. They’re both two-way players who can impact the game on both sides of the ball. Senior Tony Rowland is a player to watch on the defense.
Rowland believes the defense will be a major strength for Lyford. He said Mendoza, DeVries, Diego Guerra and Julio Cantu will be key contributors as the defense improves on its solid 2019 season. Rowland said the delayed start the Bulldogs got in comparison to their District 16-3A Division I opponents is motivation for the group to work harder than ever.
“We’re definitely a lot hungrier, and everything just means more now since people have been starting before us, so we’re just playing with a little more intensity,” Rowland said. “We’re real excited (to play next week). It’s going to feel good to hit other people. I think last year we kind of proved (how good our defense is), so this year we’re just going to double down on it. The box is really good, and our secondary is very good.”
Gonzalez agreed that, despite the fact that opponents started about one month before the Bulldogs, his group will be able to compete for a district title.
“The thing about our guys is they’re hard-nosed kids,” Gonzalez said. “They’ve been brought up in a farming community so they’ve been brought up around hard work, and it shows when they come out on the football field.”