BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
As Mission High heads toward the season with a new-look, up-tempo offense, coach Mario Pena is wary of giving too much away.
In the team’s debut scrimmage against Weslaco East last week, the Eagles hardly went to the formation, and Pena plans to take a similar approach against Edinburg North on Friday.
But, during the few plays Mission did pick up the pace, Pena said the results were promising.
“We did not show it too much, actually, but when we did we started moving the ball,” Pena said. “Really I think in general, and what I told the kids, our biggest nemesis was ourselves. Making mistakes that we shouldn’t be making. And those are things that of course are correctable, and those are the things we’re working on correcting, the things we can control.”
Who will be quarterbacking that offense is still up in the air, although the competition is down to two. William Arias, who played on varsity last season when starter Jesus Cuellar was injured, graded out the best in the scrimmage, Pena said. Last year’s junior varsity quarterback, Rudy Trevino, is also in the mix to start. Azahel Arizpe will be playing mostly defense, although Pena said he will still get a few touches per game offensively.
The biggest concern coming out of the first scrimmage was that defense, which Pena said was exposed. The Eagles have just four starters back on defense and an almost entirely new front seven.
“We’re doing a lot more hitting drills. We need to get a little more physical,” Pena said. “We made some mistakes but I knew that I had about seven or eight new guys on defense that actually were stepping into that varsity level, and so that’s basically been our challenge all week.”
TAKING IT EASY
La Joya High coach George Espinoza isn’t taking any chances during fall scrimmages. After enduring a few groin and hamstring tweaks during practice, Espinoza has been benching some of his more reliable options during the Coyotes’ preseason exhibitions.
“We felt that we didn’t want them to get banged up before the season starts,” Espinoza said. “It was a pretty rough two a days, with the heat and everything else.”
La Joya held six starters out from its first scrimmage against Brownsville Veterans, and Espinoza said three or four will be on the sidelines when the Coyotes face Mission Veterans on Wednesday.
Although La Joya is in the process of integrating some new tweaks on offense, Espinoza has prioritized keeping his first team healthy over getting them extra reps. This has also allowed Espinoza to give reps to players outside of his normal first team.
“We rotated three quarterbacks, we rotated three running backs and just tired to get a feel of everybody that was out there,” Espinoza said. “I think they did well, they executed well. A few mental mistakes, but that’s expected in the first scrimmage.”
STABLE O-LINE
On top of returning key players at quarterback, running back and wide receiver, McAllen Rowe has almost its entire offensive line back from 2014.
While the offensive line group struggled at times last year, coach Paul Reyes said the Warriors finally settled on a lineup they were comfortable with down the stretch.
“That was one of our areas that we had lost some guys and we had to experiment last year and try to find some guys,” Rowe coach Paul Reyes said. “We ended up moving some guys over. So now, we’re pretty solid. They were able to take the last three games as a group. Now, they’re just trying to get better.”