Tuesday, August 19th marked a fresh start for the Bend High Lava Bears football program in 2014, as they commenced their first practice of the week and the first official OSAA practice of the 2014 football season.
The Bend Lava Bears had a largely unsuccessful season in 2013, going 1-8 as a part of the Intermountain Conference.
Their only victory came on October 11th, when they defeated the Redmond Panthers 34-30 in Redmond.
http://youtu.be/ZZYHxEi5n7E?list=UUx1YgUMQ0P0WDaWAVmnbAzA
Matt Craven, 2nd year head coach of the Lava Bears, signaled that Bend High’s strategy would focus around using an experienced quarterback in the returning Creighton Simmonds (Sr. 6-0/165), and an experienced corps in the backfield featuring senior fullback Hunter McDonald and senior running back Chris Wallace.
Simmonds, McDonald & Wallace are three of 19 Lava Bears returning for 2014.
“I think it makes us more of a viable threat down the field,” said Craven. Craven said that developing backs that can catch the football out of the backfield can help his receivers. “If you have guys you can throw the ball to down the field as well as those backs short, it makes them (the defense) make a decision.”
http://youtu.be/LZko2KW-JOc
Redmond, Summit, Ridgeview and Mountain View, the teams that will be joining Bend in the new ‘IMC’-Intermountain Conference, scored a combined 119 points on the Lava Bears in 2013.
Ridgeview won the 4A Championship last year as part of the IMC, defeating Cottage Grove in Hillsboro, 50-31.
Coach Craven stressed being more flexible on defense in order to correct this. “Your personnel have to be flexible for your defense to be successful,” said Craven. “We see a lot of different offenses…If you can have flexible personnel on defense, you can create a defense that is flexible no matter what front you run.”
http://youtu.be/HI_iIt8Ce4k
Finally, Craven talked about the parity in the new Intermountain Conference and how success will mainly have to do with players staying healthy and improving. “There’s no bad coaching anywhere in the IMC,” said Craven.
Bend’s last winning season came in 2011 under Craig Walker, Craven’s predecessor and former Athletic Director of the program, when he lead the Bears to an 8-3 record, losing to West Albany, 28-21 in the Quarterfinals.
Since then, the Lava Bears have had little success including against their rivals, the Mountain View Cougars, who have defeated Bend 6 of the last 7 years in their annual Civil War game.
In the new playoff format adopted by the OSAA this year, the top two teams in each conference will qualify for the 16 team 5A playoffs. “There’s not one team that is poor, has a bad coaching staff, anything like that,” said Craven of the new-look IMC. “Makes it a tough conference, but the main thing is we have to improve from game one to game nine.”
Bend High opens the 2014 football season on the road against former 4A power Central High School, now a 5A team competing in the ‘Mid-Willamette’ Conference.
Kickoff is set for 7pm. at Central High School in Independence, Oregon. League play begins for the Lava Bears on Oct. 3rd, when they travel to Redmond to meet the Panthers.
BEND HIGH SCHOOL 2014-2015 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE:
9/5/2014 @ Central
9/12/2014 vs. Klamath Union
9/19/2014 vs. Eagle Point
9/26/2014 @ Pendleton
10/3/2014 @ Redmond *
10/10/2014 @ Ridgeview *
10/17/2014 @ Liberty
10/24/2014 vs. Summit *
10/31/2014 vs. Mountain View (Civil War Game) *
*-IMC League Game
ALL GAMES SCHEDULED FOR 7:00pm TIME KICKOFF.
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