Young White Plains Football Team Begins 2012 Season at Harrison
It’s officially less than a week to the start of the 2012 football season for the White Plains Tigers. High school football players devote many hours to weight training, seven-on-seven camps and double-sessions practices to prepare for the season. Come Saturday afternoon the Tigers will travel a few miles to the east to take on Harrison.
The Tigers play one of the most difficult schedules in Section I. Their first two games against Harrison and New Rochelle will test head coach Skip Stevens’ squad right from the get go. One of the biggest challenges the Tigers face is that they graduated 20 players from the 2011 team and you could count the number of returning starters on one hand.
Each team every season has their growing pains and tests they must handle to be successful. The first question mark for the 2012 Tigers is how last year’s juniors and sophomores now respectively juniors and seniors will step into starting roles?
Junior starting quarterback Cameron Crabbe will have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. The great thing for the Tigers is Crabbe is used to playing in important situations. He was one of the leaders of the 2012 varsity baseball team and was the starting quarterback for the 2011 junior varsity football team.
Crabbe is a tremendous athlete with a strong arm and will also be able to run the ball if needed by Coach Stevens. Crabbe will be handing the ball off to several different running backs. Coach Stevens doesn’t have a set backfield but says that Ari Shammery, Chris Jordan, Timothy Hodges and Juan Valencia will all get a chance to run the ball.
When Crabbe throws the ball he will look for Luke Puff and Lukas Repetti. Both Puff and Repetti made some remarkable catches during the fourth annual Big Apple Shootout hosted by White Plains in June.
The Tigers had a scrimmage last Thursday and the offense still needed some fine- tuning according to Coach Stevens.
“Yesterday I thought we looked pretty good on defense. Offensively we weren’t consistent is a good way to put it,” said Stevens. “We saw some glimpses. Our quarterback ran the ball very well. We threw the ball very good. We were just very consistent up front.”
Coach Stevens praised the hard work that left guard Josu Trevejo has made over the last two weeks in summer double-sessions.
The Tigers defense will be tested right away against Harrison on Saturday. Harrison runs a triple-option offense. This type of offense is meant to confuse the defense by making it hard for them to pick up which way the ball is going.
“We tell them it’s an assignment football. We make sure that they have their assignments down. If they make a mistake on their assignment just run to the ball,” said Coach Stevens on how he and other coaches are teaching the players to defend on the triple-option.
Key defensive players for the Tigers in 2012 will include lineman Elijiah Young, Robby Lorden and also linebackers Hodges and Josh Renfroe.
When a team is young and plays an extremely competitive schedule it’s not right to always judge a team by their record and team statistics. A key thing to remember with the Tigers is a good number of their players this year will be playing at the varsity level for the first time.
What is a fair way to determine if the 2012 season is a success or not? If the players learn how to work together and support one another while improving their skills on the field then this season will be a huge success because football is just another class these individuals are taking as part of their high school education. Not all learning is done within a classroom. Being a member of a high school sports team, teaches lessons and values that will last a lifetime.
As for how many wins the Tigers will have it’s nearly impossible to predict. Replacing 20 seniors is an uphill task and it’s hard to evaluate a player’s talent when they haven’t yet played at the varsity level. It will be interesting to see how the 2012 Tigers perform in their first game on Saturday.
One of the wonderful things about a new season is that it’s a new opportunity for student athletes that we haven’t heard of to step up and make a difference on the football field. If the inexperienced players step up quickly and execute the plays that the coaches call than the sky can be the limit for the Tigers this fall.
As for what Coach Stevens wants to see from his players in 2012 it is very simple.
“I want to see them stay together, weather any kind of adversity and then play better as the games go along, “said Stevens.
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