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Strap
’em on, boys - O’Connor,
BC, Falcons are ready for some football
by
Jason Stone
CCUSD/DVUSD
– Boulder Creek’s varsity football team will get a chance
to break in its home stadium during the Jaguars’ first varsity
season. Seven of the 10 games on the schedule are slated
to be played at the Anthem campus.
But
one of the three out‑of‑town games can literally
be called a road trip. The Jaguars will travel to Las Vegas
on Sept. 1 for a game against Silverado. It could prove
to be one of the longest trips the school team will ever
take.
Don’t
think the Jags won’t be prepared for that trip. Boulder
Creek opened up a week of fall practices on Monday in the
scenic Bison Ranch near Heber in the White Mountains of
eastern Arizona.
Two
bus loads of players left at 6 a.m. on Monday. They left
their cell phones at home.
“They
couldn’t get a reception up there last year, so nobody brought
them,” team spokesman Carl Hulse said. “It’s all about football.”
“All
about football.”
Those
are the three words all pigskin fans love to hear.
Boulder
Creek, Sandra Day O’Connor and Cactus Shadows each got a
kick start to the 2006 season when the Arizona Interscholastic
Association allowed the three schools to begin workouts
a week early. Most teams will begin next Monday but because
the three schools either play an extra game or start
games a week before most teams, the association allowed
an early week of practice.
At 7 a.m. on Monday, a peppy Cactus Shadows team was on
the field, hoping to improve on last year’s 5‑5 record,
which turned out have five more wins than the year before.
Coach Chad DeGrenier is hoping the team ends up with five
more wins again this season.
“I
like starting (practices) early because we’re able to do
two‑a‑days (two practices per day) for an extra
week,” DeGrenier said. “When we start (normal time), we
only get a couple of days of two‑a‑days because
school starts.”
The
Falcons are hoping to have one of the most explosive offenses
in the state this season. That led DeGrenier to predict
a state championship moments after Cactus Shadows was ousted
in the first round of last year’s 4A‑Division II playoffs
at Queen Creek.
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