HOCKINSON — Hockinson feels like it’s had a target on its chest for the last five seasons around Clark County. This year, coming off the school’s first 2A state title, they feel that pressure from the entire state.
“We’ve been on both ends of this thing, we know everyone wants to beat us bad,” Hockinson coach Rick Steele said.
But those talks were sidelined Wednesday evening when the defending state champions took the field as a team for the official first day of football practice.
Last year may have been Hockinson’s first state championship, but Steele has been doing this long enough to know it’s a long road to get there.
That’s why the focus Wednesday was on the technical.
“It’s business as usual,” Steele said. “It’s the way we start every year. The message we want to give to the football team is it was last year’s kids who won the state title. We start the way we always start, so we can build those building blocks as a team before we try and do it again.”
The Hawks were one of the few teams in Clark County to practice outdoors, as air quality advisories swept the Pacific Northwest. Vancouver Public Schools and the Evergreen school district issued a mandate Wednesday morning that schools practice indoors.
Steele and Hockinson athletic director Josh Johnson monitored the air quality, and decided mid-afternoon that the conditions sufficed.
Though dreams of a repeat title underscore the Hawks’ expectations, those were never broached Wednesday. Coaches wove in specific plays during school’s first state championship last December, a 35-22 win over Tumwater, throughout their technical lessons
“(Aidan) Mallory scored a touchdown by doing this,” one coach said, demonstrating defensive coverage technique.
Steele, another time, used an example of a defensive breakdown that resulted in Tumwater’s favor.
“You can see how a mistake like that in a state championship game can cost you,” he told players, “that can’t happen to us ever.”
Much of the same core returns for Hockinson,it replaces 2A state player of the year Canon Racanelli, who accounted for 57 passing touchdowns last season.
Despite his departure, Hockinson expects to sport the “same old passing game” with junior Levi Crum stepping in.
“Every game he plays as a varsity football player he’s going to get better,” Steele said. “If you watch Levi week 1 and 2, he’s going to be a totally different player weeks 8 and 9.”
Midnight start
Football practice officially started Wednesday and Ridgefield couldn’t wait to be the first to get going.
Under recently appointed interim coach Chris Abrams, the Spudders kicked off practice at midnight Wednesday morning under the lights at Ridgefield.
The stadium lights flickered on and music began blaring out of the speakers as the Spudders charged onto the field. The mood around practice, which went until just after 2 a.m., was upbeat.
“We came out and were like, ‘this is better than we thought,’ ” senior Brock Harrison said. “I thought it was really cool. (Abrams) is doing a great job. He’s got us all excited. We’re all ready to go.”
Ridgefield is the first Clark County team to do a midnight practice since Skyview did so a decade ago. For Abrams, who is filling in for recently fired head coach Kim Ulman, the practice served as something for the team to rally behind.
Indoor practices
Most teams across Southwest Washington weren’t as lucky as Hockinson or Ridgefield on their first day of practice Wednesday.
Because of air quality numbers, school officials at the area’s largest districts — Vancouver and Evergreen public schools — made the call Wednesday to send football teams indoors, as did Battle Ground Public Schools later in the day.
And that meant modifying practices.
For coaches like Adam Mathieson at Mountain View, now in his 11th season coaching the Thunder, the excitement of the first day of practice never fades, regardless of where practice is held.
Indoors, though, has a closer-knit feel, he said.
“Sometimes on a football field,” he said, “the intensity is different when you’re all spread out. You get in the gym and you can’t help but have excitement.
“It’s like wrestlemania.”
In the Thunder’s case, more than 100 players were spread across three facilities — both gymnasiums and wrestling room.
While a lack of space is a noticeable setback, some players found perks to an indoor practice.
“We get music we can all hear,” said senior Justin Lufkin-Quant.
An indoors practice isn’t new to most area teams. Last year’s smoky conditions in early September pushed local teams inside for up to three days.
That’s where Lufkin-Quant doesn’t notice a difference, he said.
“We’re still playing football. It’s still fun,” Lufkin-Quant said.
At Fort Vancouver, the Trappers not only have a new turfed practice field they hope to use as early as Thursday, they’re under new leadership.
Neil Lomax, a nine-year NFL veteran at quarterback, heads up his first high school program. His his first day as a head coach was inside, and he played it off as if the Trappers were at the Seattle Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center practice facility in Renton.
“It’s a little smaller,” Lomax said, “not quite the same field turf, and not the same quality as the Seahawks’ quality. That’s how I look at it.”
More than 40 Trappers filled the main gymnasium — most in athletic shoes, but some in flip-flops — in what the players like senior Jonavian Salavea and junior Isaac Martinez already feel is a culture change under Lomax.
“He has confidence in us,” Salavea said. “He wants us to succeed on and off the field.”
Staff writer Meg Wochnick contributed to this report.
