The Spartans, who didn’t exist just 10 months ago, went from learning how to properly stretch, among other basics, in their initial practices this past spring, to experiencing wins on the field much sooner than many expected. Now, that journey will take them to the CIF playoffs.
Orcutt, which wrapped up its regular season with a 63-28 win at Valley Christian Academy on Oct. 27, was selected as an at-large team for the CIF 8-man Division I tournament. The Spartans, who finished the regular season with a 5-4 record, will open the postseason on Friday, Nov. 2, at Cate School, the No. 1 seed from the Condor League.
Orcutt head coach Tony Payne, who was tasked with building the program from the ground up when he was hired in April, said he expected the team to have some early success. More important than any wins on the field, though, according to the coach, was the way the players and the school came together to help make this inaugural season a memorable one. “I would say just from the feedback we get that we’ve exceeded expectations,” Payne said. “Maybe not our own personal expectations, but we’ve exceeded our school’s and our community’s expectations and it feels great. These kids have come an awfully long way.”
That much is apparent when looking at where the Spartans started.
During spring practices, the focus wasn’t so much on schemes and specific plays as it was on fundamentals and, in many ways, introducing the game to a large group of players who had never worn pads or helmets. As the team progressed through spring and into the fall, that’s when the coaches began to see that they might have something special on their hands, according to defensive coordinator Justin Magdaleno.
“It was a learning process, but slowly but surely, every game we would see a new kid finally get that football sense and (realize) what it is like to play football at a high level,” Magdaleno said. “They’d never played before, so you find out quickly who wants to be a football player and who doesn’t want to be. We found every week that kids made themselves into football players and found out how fun this could be. Just seeing those kids every week – seeing new football players emerge – was amazing.”
One of those players who has risen to the occasion in his first season of organized football is senior tailback and linebacker Robert Reed, who leads the team with 625 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns and is second on the team with 44 tackles. Noting his own inexperience, as well as that of many of his teammates, Reed credits much of his and the team’s success to the coaching staff.
“The coaches knew what they needed to do and how to do it and they took charge and just completely transformed us into the football team that we needed to be,” he said.
Reed said that the initial game at Trinity Classical Academy was one of his highlights of his first season on the gridiron. The Spartans didn’t fare well in the contest, an eventual 52-14 loss, but the seeds of success were there, according to Reed.
“The whole team was nervous, you could tell,” he said. “We took our lumps in that game, and it kind of brought us down to earth, but by the second half you could just tell the whole team was completely changed in their attitude and we started taking it to them. It wasn’t enough, because it started too late, but there was a change you could feel and see in the whole team.”
The squad picked up its first win two weeks later at Maricopa and went on to win four of its final five games, including a forfeit.
One particularly key loss came in the Spartans’ home opener against Dunn School. The visiting Earwigs overcame a late deficit and went ahead in the final two minutes en route to a 38-36 win. That loss dropped Orcutt to 1-3 at the time, and Magdaleno said it changed the team for the better.
“These kids didn’t want that feeling again, so I think we saw them take it to the next level as far as preparing for games and a renewed emphasis on tackling,” he said. “They realized what a hard loss feels like and they didn’t want that again, so we saw them push themselves and make themselves better.”
Along with Reed, the Spartans also got strong play and leadership from seniors Nate Debruno, who is second on the team with 562 yards and nine scores on the ground, and quarterback Ricky Nuno, who is the leading passer (336 yards, 6 TDs) and third-leading rusher (326 yards, 3 TDs) despite missing time this season due to a leg injury.
“We’ve got a great group of seniors,” Payne said. “Watching some of those guys take advantage of their one and only shot to play football and make the most of it has just been incredible to watch.”
The team also got plenty of production from its juniors and underclassmen, which certainly bodes well for the future. Thanks to the groundwork laid by this year’s team, expectations will surely be higher for next year – when the team will have true spring and summer workouts and will be able to spend more time on the players and playbook, and less time on initializing everything – and the coaches and players wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Any time you get any kind of success, the coaches, the athletes coming back, the parents, everybody is gonna have higher expectations,” Magdaleno said. “And the reality is, we should do better next year. We have lots of kids returning and we’re gonna get a true spring where we can put in our offense and defensive formations and have a true summer where we can keep building on that success.”
Asked if he’d do anything differently if he had the chance to do it all over again, Payne thought for a moment before answering that he’d take the exact same route.
“The way that our coaching staff has come together and the way that the kids have responded to what we’ve put in, I think we’ve done a good job taking things as they’ve come and adjusting to the players,” he said. “We had to come in with open minds because (Magdaleno) and I had never coached 8-man football before.”
In addition to the slight rules differences of the 8-man game, the coaches, who had previous experience working with 11-man teams at larger high schools, had other issues to deal with as well. Among them were working at a small school and a school that is run by an elementary district – not that they are complaining.
“We’ve got a great principal and a great AD, and tons of support from everywhere,” Payne said. “I have no regrets. It’s been a pleasure all year.”
There will be one major difference next year, though: The team won’t be going through everything together for the first time, something that Payne said he had come to appreciate.
“Sometimes at practice I’ll say out loud, ‘That was the best practice in the history of Spartan football’ and I’m not even lying,” he said. “It’s fun to say that kind of stuff.”