All Things Prep Football by Dan Sousa
By Dan Sousa
LoudounPrepSports Senior Content Editor
Ashburn (Aug. 17, 2008) - The last time I saw Stone Bridge High School football coach Mickey Thompson on a field it was celebrating his Bulldogs AAA Division 5 state title back in December at the University of Virginia. He couldn't have been happier.
And Friday night ... I'm not sure he could have been more upset after his team held its first scrimmage of the 2008 season.
Thompson was livid after blown blocking assignments led to among other things, an injury to Bulldog starting quarterback, senior Patrick Thompson. Patrick and his twin Zach, who will play in a year at Wake Forest, were two big reasons that SB earned its state title last year. It was feared Friday -- Patrick was headed to the emergency room after the scrimmage -- that Stone Bridge will have to open its 2008 season without its top quarterback as the sideline diagnosis was a ruptured tendon in the throwing hand for Thompson.
Coach Thompson said that Patrick could be out for up to six weeks which could include highly-anticpated non-district match-ups against West Springfield and Robinson as well as the Bulldogs Liberty District opener with Marshall and a non-district rivalry game with Loudoun Valley.
Patrick Thompson threw for almost 1,000 yards in the playoffs alone in 2007, totalling 998 yards including 286 yards and four touchdowns in the state title 38-0 romp over Potomac. Patrick threw 13 touchdowns in five postseason games with just one interception. Overall in 2007, Thompson, in his first year as a starter, threw for 2,338 yards with 20 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. His loss is huge for Stone Bridge, especially with the next quarterback on the Bulldog depth chart a sophomore.
That sophomore, however, is Kyle Gouveia and of course the Gouveia name is well know in Stone Bridge circles as Kyle is the cousin of Jeron Gouveia-Winslow who just finished a spectacular run where he was one of the top players in the state on defense and a great threat on offfense. Gouveia-Winslow is a freshman this season at Virginia Tech.
Kyle Goviea, a gifted athlete, saw some playing time on varsity last season as a freshman, but attempted just nine passes on the year with four completions for 45 yards.
Thompson could be heard from 40 yards away giving his team a stern warning on their attitude and approach to the 2008 season. When asked if his postscrimmage speech was purely motivational, Thompson shook his head slowly.
"I've never said that to any team," said Thompson. "I'm speechless. I'm embarrassed. It's nothing to Broad Run. They are a good team. But we made mental erros. We had a lack of focus. We had a lack of caring about team. We had a bunch of individuals out there."
Thompson simply won't tolerate mental errors and missed assignments. And oppossing teams are sure to not cut SB any slack in 2008 as they have had quite a run. In all the team has lost just two regular season games since the start of 2003 for an amazing 48-2 mark. Counting playoff games, the Bulldogs are 60-6 over the past five seasons.
"The players have a decision to make ... we will see how they take it," said Thompson. "I have had teams start 0-2, it's not the end of the world. We will see in practice over the next three or four days as to how they will repond."
Ross Madison Earns "Iron Lion" Award
The Heritage High School football staff established a competition last year that would honor the hard work that the football players put in during the off-season. The competition is called the 'IRON LION' and it is an annual award that is presented in August every year. The award is determined by a series of events including off-season attendance, agility performance (40-yard dash, broad jump, vertical jump) and core lifts (bench, squat, power clean and deadlift). The 2008 competition occurred the last week of summer workouts, July 28 – Aug 1. This culminated in the best off-season in Heritage Football history, according to Pride assistant football coach David Bishop, as many of the records were broken in all events this year.
Wrote Bishop: "The Heritage staff is proud to say the second annual "Iron Lion" recipient is senior Ross Madison. Ross has come a long way in the last few years. He always had the natural talent and athletic ability. Ross worked hard on the field his first few years but would be the first to admit that he did not possess the work ethic in the off-season. These past few years were a 180 degree turnaround for his off-season performance. He has become a player who the coaches have to kick out of the weight room because he would be in there for hours and never wanted to go home. Ross realized that he wanted to go from being a good/great player to something special. The Heritage staff could not be any prouder to have Ross as the 2nd annual Iron Lion winner."
Let me just say this ... I interviewed Ross Madison on Friday and you can see that he has been hitting the weight room and it will be interesting to see how this translates onto the football field. Madison should take a serious run at Dominion's Deandre Reaves for top rushing honors in the Dulles District.
Ross received the trophy during a presentation on picture day and will have his picture and his name added to the plaque in the weight room.
Bishop also added: "The competition was more intense than ever. Last year’s winner, Bryan McCarthy won the event with 45 pts. This year third place scored 50 pts … second place 57 pts and Ross won with 62 pts. This demonstrates how the kids continue to push each other and strive for bigger things for Heritage Football."
Top 3 results of Iron Lion
1. Ross Madison 62 pts
2. David McCarthy 57 pts
3. Danny Offei 50 pts
Ross Madison’s individual results:
Bench – 230 lbs. 40 time - 4.47 sec.
Squat – 450 lbs. Broad Jump – 9’ 8"
Clean - 285 lbs. Vert Jump - 31"
Deadlift – 460 lbs. Attendance - 93%
Campus Tour - Part II
Well ... I don't set out to make this incredible swings but there I was walking the sidelines Friday night at Stone Bridge, watching the "Backyard Brawl" between the two Ashburn schools and with that I was able to check out five schools in a little over 24 hours.
This Campus Tour started the day before at Park View High School, where I got to see the Patriots play some "pick-up football". There was nothing organized here as the players had been told to "go home" by the coaching staff on the eve of their first scrimmage.
Earlier it had been Picture Day and the Patriots did not follow instructions as laid out by the coaching staff. It was also to be "graduation night" for the Patriot Pride program. Coach Andy Hill wasn't too happy with the team and, while I was counting on watching the team run through some drills, I had to settle for a chat in Hill's "Bat Cave" under the school.
"Basically I sent them home," said Hill. "I never have good luck with the team the day before a first scrimmage."
Hill had been looking forward to the Patriot Pride activities as the average number of kids participating in the offseason program at Park View jumped from 22 in 2007 to 42 this past offseason.
Still, PV is a young team and they are making those rookie mistakes. Hill gave this example, one Saturday he asked the team to show up for the Saturday morning workout with playbooks in hand ... six out of 88 kids had their playbooks.
So far in training camp, junior Brandon Lee has worked his way into position to replace three-year starter and all-time record-setting Patriot quarterback C.J. Leizear. Lee shared time with another junior, Sawyer Hackett, last year with the JV.
Expect sophomores to play a big role in Sterling this year with perhaps an all-sophomore staring linebacker crew on defense. Eric Palma, a 5-foot-9, 209-pound tough as nails player is somebody who should make an impact on both sides of the ball for PV.
PV has some skilled players back such as Brandon Absher, Daryus Beale, Josh Jones, Tommy Sedeski, Marcus Freeman, Kenny Smith, Nathan Santana and Drew Mason but will the Pats have a big enough and experienced enough line to give the skilled players a chance to make plays? Hill's report back from their scrimmage Friday at Turner Ashby was not positive.
"We played poorly and looked very, very young," Hill reported back.
On Friday morning I headed over to Leesburg to check out Heritage.
It was yet another perfect day ... in August! Have all local football players got together enough money to bribe Mother Nature to keep the usual sticky weather away? You almost need 3-a-days in this weather to get the same affect you usually get with 2-a-days.
It was good to see Jason "Choppy" Burke running the defense after his heart attack earlier this summer.
The good news for Heritage is that again the kids have bought into the offseason conditioning and strength training and coach Wes Driskill has several players back who were out with injury last year including linebacker Austin McCalla and Danny Offei. The Pride also have a transfer from Potomac Falls who should help greatly in Josh Toney who is slated for the offensive line and inside linebacker.
In our preview coming up in a week or so, look for interviews with seniors Ross Madison and Russell East. This team is well-represented with these young men speaking for them.
This is the time of the year when teams tire of hitting each other so you can bet it was a welcome site for Briar Woods Friday to see an opponent walk into their stadium, even if that opponent was Potomac High School which we last saw playing Stone Bridge in the D5 state title game.
Every time I see BW junior Billy McDonald he looks bigger and stronger. The fullback will surely give some teams a hard time this season, especially running behind one of the district's bigger lines. McDonald could easily carry a half dozen opponenets across the goal line on a fullback plunge.
I should note in open policy that I coached McDonald for a summer league basketball team and the same can be noted for the Falcons new junior quarterback Austin Frattali, who will step into the big shoes left by Alex Munro. It is great to see these nice kids getting their shot ... and they have earned it with hard work.
One BW opponent was trying to get a really good look at the scrimmage with coaches setting up a video camera in the visiting stands but that idea was quickly squelched by the BW staff prior to the start of things as that is against the policy of teams in this area.
Finally, on to Stone Bridge and it was quite a crowd that showed up to watch the Spartans and Bulldogs go through their paces.
Some scrimmages have more stoppages than others and certain rules (no hitting the quarterback for example) but this scrimmage featued plenty of action and some physical play. Would a regular season game between these two teams be something special ... on the field and at the gate! We can dream.
It was hard to get a good read from the scrimmage however as the two teams played mostly second and third units the entire second part of things. That, however, is important as those players need to get their work in and many are just up to varsity and need the most help.
All I know is that Broad Run appears to have enough talent to warrant its preseason favorite label in the Dulles District and Stone Bridge put out a defensive line that featued three D1 players (Zach Thompson, Brian Slay, Ed Wang) and a fourth player with great heart (Jimmy Bradford). The Bulldogs will be something to watch on defense with this group at the line of scrimmage.
Stone Bridge was missing several offensive lineman due to injuries, including a broken finger to junior center Eric Volz, slated to step into a starting role this season in a very important spot in the single wing offense. Volz in expected to miss almost a month. Besides Volz, at least two other O-Line went out with injuries. It was evident from Thompson's concern after the scrimmage that players called to fill in starting roles were not completly ready. For Stone Bridge, there is now less than two weeks to get ready as the season starts Aug. 29 with a match-up against West Springfield ... a game pitting teams ranked in the top five in preseason polls by VirginiaPreps.com.
Ready or not ... here they come.
Click here for past Huddle Up blog entries!
