The past two years have shown a steady improvement for the Summit Storm football team, and their preseason preparations from practice on Wednesday, August 20, all the way to their scheduled jamboree on August 29 seem to indicate that their positive momentum will continue into the 2014 season.
At Summit’s football jamboree on August 29th, the Storm played Parkrose and Reynolds. Although struggles on the defensive end led to a 14-0 defeat against Reynolds, the Storm turned it around against Parkrose, defeating them 6-0.
The Storm have been steadily building forward momentum ever since a dismal 2-7 season in 2012, under Head Coach Joe Padilla who took over from Jerry Hackenbruck, now the coach of the Storm’s Girl’s State Title golf team.
Last season the Storm (5-6) made its first ever OSAA Playoff game only to lose at West Albany, 48-20.
Summit has built this momentum off bringing in NFL greats Drew Bledsoe and Kevin Boss to serve as their offensive coordinator, and tight ends coach respectively, as well as a renewed focus on a balanced offensive & defensive attack which will feature 8 returning starters on each side of the ball.
“The main thing is, I love the balance of our team,” said Coach Padilla Wednesday following practice. “It’s not a couple of guys that we’re relying on to make big plays, we have a lot of guys that are capable of getting the job done for us this year.”
http://youtu.be/5ilcI7Uwfns
Among the talent that Coach Padilla highlighted, the Storm will feature two quarterbacks in junior Bransen Reynolds and sophomore John Bledsoe, who according to Coach Padilla are both performing so well in camp that the Storm have yet to name a starter.
Reynolds played in 10 games last year for the Storm and maintained a QBR of 82.7, throwing for 1,177 yards and 13 touchdowns over those ten games.
http://youtu.be/5ilcI7Uwfns
Besides Reynolds and Bledsoe, other talent includes the much talked about Cam McCormick (Sr. 6-5/220) at tight end, and sophomore Kyle Cornett at wide receiver which Coach Padilla described as having some “Tyler Mullen-type abilities in terms of making big catches”, Padilla referencing the star wide-out for the Storm that appeared in 11 games, and caught 32 passes for 777 yards & 9 touchdowns in 2013.
Coach Padilla indicated that football fans will likely be seeing a lot of Cam McCormick on the defensive side of the football, specifically playing linebacker and defensive end.
“With his size and speed, specifically his speed…he can run 11.3 in the 100m,” said Padilla. “He’s a good athlete, and we’re looking for him to make plays on the perimeter in those situations.”
Stalwart linemen Kyle Heimuller (Sr. 6-3/230) and senior Trever Betcher will be returning as well for Summit and anchoring the line that protects whoever the Storm starting quarterback may be.
Coach Padilla pointed to Summit’s zone blocking scheme as a way for experienced linemen like Betcher and Heimuller to help the younger linemen.
http://youtu.be/ZF90eHgnL94
“It’s a lot of working together in pairs and getting your job done as a group, and that’s something that’s improving every day in practice,” says Coach Padilla.
The goal for Coach Padilla and Summit continues to be making the playoffs, and Coach Padilla highlighted the new 5A playoff format as a new challenge to that goal.
In the new 5A format, the top two teams in the IMC are the only ones that will advance to the playoffs, and the ‘play-in’ games of years past are eliminated.
“I think every game will be a battle for us, but I think we have a chance in every game,” said Padilla of his team’s chances to make the playoffs.
“With the new format we’ve upped our schedule a little bit to help ourselves out, but we’ve got to win those games now. A lot of that obviously comes in league play…We’re taking one game at a time and treating every game like, ‘this is the one’.”
Summit will open their challenging schedule at home on Sept. 5 against 5A stalwart Pendleton of the Columbia River Conference, who went 8-3 last season.
League play gets underway on October 3, when Summit returns home after away games at Franklin and The Dalles to meet the IMC Champion Mountain View Cougars.
SUMMIT STORM 2014 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
9/5/2014 vs Pendleton
9/12/2014 @ Franklin
9/19/2014 vs Ashland
9/26/2014 @ The Dalles
10/3/2014 vs Mountain View *
10/10/2014 @ Redmond *
10/17/2014 vs Ridgeview *
10/24/2014 @ Bend *
10/31/2014 vs North Salem
* INDICATES AN IMC LEAGUE GAME.
ALL GAMES SCHEDULED FOR 7PM KICKOFF.
-William James
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