The Pirate football team had a busy dance card as they played eight games last weekend at the Valencia and Bigs Challenge a 7-7 scrimmage hosted by Valencia high school.
“Our guys overall did a great job,” said GHS head football coach Steve Brown. “In the games we won [five], we dominated, holding several opponents to even scoring.”
Brown was excited that the Pirates tied two games with big 6A schools, Los Lunas and Cleveland High School.
“There was some really good competition out there and it’s safe to say that we handled our business,” said Brown.
“Our kids worked great together and communicated well with each other on both sides of the ball,” said Brown.
Brown did lack some key players who were out on vacation but had much praise for the “younger” players. “I am also very excited to see some of our younger guys step up and fill some very big shoes,” said Brown.
“I can say the same for our big guys—they dominated the competition.”
Brown had much praise for Gary Chavez, who “tore it up” at the bench press contest, where players had to bench press 185 lbs. for as many repitions as possible. Chavez had 30 repetitions compared with the next best player who had 13 repetitions.
“We are expecting a big season from Gary and the rest of our linemen,” said Brown.
“They truly will be a determining factor on how our season goes.”
Brown indicated that he liked the different combinations he could run next season, “We have a lot of talent at all our skill’s positions that we literally can plug and play virtually all the positions,” said Brown.
“That’s how deep and good we are at many positions.”
Brown was more than pleased with his team's performance overall, “We got a lot of work done– our kids were exhausted at the end of the day simply because they never stopped giving max effort”.
Football teams attending the 7-7 were Cleveland, Los Lunas, Albuquerque Academy, Pojoaque, St. Pius and the host Valencia high school.