Every play was a battle. Every down an opportunity. When you go up against a 3A team, it takes the effort of the entire team to come out on top. With a final score of 19-14, Englewood football took home a big W against Littleton and gained confidence after a tough start to the 2021 season.
The team is a spunky one, led by number two, senior quarterback Gunner Johnson who spent the last few years preparing for this year, “I think I prepared pretty heavily going to quarterback training, going to every single summer workout, make sure I knew my teammates, made sure we are ready for the season.”
The coaching staff says Johnson has been a strong player over the last few years, but it took some insight on his own part to get to the next level, “More forming into actual quarterback instead of just being a two-way athlete playing defense and offense, just playing mainly quarterback, and learning more of that fundamental stuff.”
He is really proud of his team and its ability to fight the good fight each week, “Probably the growth of our team because we're a pretty young team and after every game, you could see how much better we are with the attitude and being more physical and stuff like that.”
Johnson says the attitude of the athletes has improved as the season progresses, “You can really see our growth throughout the game. Usually, we'd get down by one point, or we down by two points, two touchdowns, and then we just put our heads down, but now we're like, we're in and we can keep up with them we keep going, don't stop.”
Gunner Johnson hopes to play football in college but is wide open to opportunities.
On the coaching side, “I think the years started off with just really fighting, fighting hard, and playing really good teams I think Weld Central and Bayfield are really good teams and we can see them in the playoffs. I think we were tested early, For sure. I think this win against Littleton on Thursday night was a really big boost to our overall swagger and ego,” said Bryan Daldegan, who is the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator.
Young doesn’t mean inexperienced and Daldegan sees maturity in his players, “I think the one thing that I see in the team, every week is just, the young pups on our team the freshmen that are stepping up big and the seniors that are helping them continue to grow and continue to get better, week by week.”
Daldegan stops at calling 2021 a building year and chooses to look at it through a lens of positivity, “Every year you build in high school football because every year you have a different team a different set of seniors a different set of juniors, sophomores, and so on and so forth and so every year you're building to be the best team you can so I wouldn't call it just like a rebuilding year or anything I just call it a season that we're looking forward to expanding our team's growth and we're always trying to get better each week.”
Number 7 Shawn Fox plays running back and linebacker for the Pirates. Fox prepared for the season in multiple ways, “A lot of lifting throughout the preseason and I was heavily involved in the summer workouts, stuff like that. I even spent time out of my own, days after school going into the weight room to better myself. I ate right of course. And then I watched a lot of film from last year.”
Fox says the linebacker position is multi-faceted and is more complicated, “Linebacker is definitely harder. You have to be good at the position and you have to do so many things right. You're the captain of the defense and you make most of the tackles especially in the scheme that we run, you're heavily important. You have to make the plays, you have to make the tackles. You have to read linemen, there's a lot involved in it.”
His relationship with the team is very different this year as a senior. Fox says there are so many young players who are looking to the seniors as leaders, “In my past experiences, it's kind of been, I was the younger guy, and I was looking up to other people. Now it's everybody's kind of looking up to me for advice, but I love it. As a senior group, we're really close. We've been playing (the twins, Isaiah, and Aiden) have been basically playing together since second grade all the way through. Also, just being able to play a full senior year is really important and builds a good bond between us.”
"Just being able to play a full senior year is really important and builds a good bond between us.”-Shawn Fox
Next year, Fox is planning on a career in the military or college football, “I'm planning on either pursuing the Marines or playing college football. I have a lot of interest in playing college football I just haven't got an official offer yet from schools. We think they're waiting for my senior film.”
Credits:
Cody Mollick, Nataly Barrios, Laura Fox