LA CUEVA BEARS UP BRIGHT AND EARLY FOR DEFENSE OF THEIR TITLE
High school football practice is officially underway. “It’s really exciting,” said La Cueva senior Mark Handy. “It’s our first morning of two-a-days. We have helmets on for the first time and everyone’s excited to play.”
“I’m excited and pumped, we’re going to have a really good team this year,” said senior Mason Posa. “We have so much to play for after winning a state title last year. We’re trying to go back-to-back, that’s the goal. Everyone’s been working hard and we’re excited and it’s going to be a really good year.”
The first official day of football practice started bright and early Monday morning at 6am for the defending state champs from La Cueva.
“We miss a lot of the heat and miss a lot of the weather,” said Brandon Back in his 11th year as head coach of the Bears. “They’ve really taken a hold of it because we do everything in the morning. They’re not new to this.”
“I tell everybody, if I can get up in the morning anybody can,” Back joked. “I literally roll over and every morning and think, ‘When can I take a nap?’”
The Bears begin the season loaded with returning talent. Defensive standout Mason Posa committed to Wisconsin. 6’6, 320-pound offensive lineman Mark Handy is headed to Minnesota, and quarterback Cam Dyer will play for Arizona State.
“We have a team that’s hungry again,” said Dyer. “We know what it took last year to get there and it’s going to be even harder to get there again this year. We’re hungry.”
La Cueva only graduated two starters on offense and the pressure to repeat is there. “There’s definitely more noise and more pressure, but we try to tell the kids every day that November is too far away to think about,” said Back. “We’re just trying to be better this afternoon than we were this morning. If we can focus on that and be better each day, we talk about moving the chains just an inch, if we can just move those chains an inch, by the time we get to November we should be able to set ourselves up for an opportunity to play for a championship, but we’re not going to worry about that, we don’t spend any time talking about it, we just try to be better each and every day.”
“Our goal is to win the state championship, but that’s everyone’s goal,” said Dyer. “To be the best team we can be, that’s our number one goal.”
La Cueva will open the season August 23rd against Volcano Vista.
