By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
After participating in spring practices this year, Pace hoped to pick up where it left off.
When practices started for the season Monday, that’s exactly what the Vikings did.
“The carryover has been fantastic,” Pace coach William Deen said after accomplishing the team’s goal of installing schemes on both sides of the ball during the spring. “It hasn’t been a problem for us, we haven’t missed a step. It’s been very good, and they’re very excited.”
With a week less of practices to start the year, Pace isn’t worried. Deen feels that the team got up to speed in the spring and now is preparing for the opening game against Edinburg Vela.
“Everything we do is in preparation for that game,” Deen said.
Offensively, the Vikings are working on replacing several skill players lost to graduation.
“We’re trying to work on developing our new players, our unanswered questions,” Pace offensive coordinator Kenneth Reininger said. “We have some guys coming back on the offensive line, but our skill positions are untested. It’s going to be a challenge for us, but we’re excited for our players coming up.”
Pace returns less than a handful of starters, most of them on the offensive line. They do return some experience at some of the skilled positions, but all were non-starters.
The Vikings worked on the little things in spring practices that seemed to plague them last season.
“I think the most important thing on offense is consistency,” Deen said. “Handling the ball with no turnovers.”
But the team is further along than expected at this point, and the Pace coach hopes to establish a greater rushing attack to open up the offense.
“We want to be a more physical team (this season), we want to be able to run the ball well,” Deen said. “We still want to throw it, but when we have to run it we want to be able to run it.”
Reininger agreed.
“We want to improve our run game and open it up to help our passing game,” he said. “I think that will be key for us.”
Defensively, the Vikings are much more solid. Players return on the defensive line and at the linebacker positions. Only the secondary lost a pair of starters.
A main focus for the Pace defense has been conditioning.
“We have to be in better shape,” Pace defensive coordinator Patrick Boutwell said. “That’s where we lost the (Edinburg Vela) game last year.”
The Vikings had trouble keeping up with a fast-moving offense for an entire game, often tiring after halftime. Early conditioning drills have taken that into account.
“We call it our mental and physical toughness circuit,” Boutwell said. “We’re going to take our kids to a place they’ve never been before. We’re hoping they get to that point.
“We have a solid core. We should be able to defend the run a little better and play the pass decently.”
And spring practices helped escalate the defensive progress.
“We came out and it was all review, there was no teaching,” Boutwell said. “We would have been pressed for time if we would have started last week.”
When the Vikings can put pads on at the end of the week, they will do so with an emphasis on fundamentals.
“Blocking, tackling, catching the ball, “ Reininger said. “We want to make sure our basic fundamentals are solid. Basic football 101 to make sure we’re on the same page.
And Deen was looking forward to that day, too.
“To see how much of the physical carries over from spring ball,” he said. “We know the kids know what they’re doing, but can we go out and play without thinking, play to the best of our abilities?”
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.