Mustangs go 2-2 in 7-on-7 passing tournament
GILROY – Off-season workouts continued Saturday for the Gilroy High football team, which competed in a 7-on-7 passing tournament at San Jose State University.
“We’ve got a long ways to go,” head coach Darren Yafai said. “Defensively, we looked really, really good. Our kids are physical. They made a bunch of plays on balls and we only had a couple of coverage breakdowns, which was good for it being so early in the year.”
Gilroy finished with a 2-2 record in its five-team pool of the 24 competing schools, but were nixed out of the championship rounds by virtue of a tiebreaker. They were tied with two other teams and the points differential benefited an opposing squad.
“I told the kids defensively we looked pretty good and offensively we were hot and cold,” Yafai said. “We had by far and away the toughest bracket as far as the quality of teams.”
The Mustangs defeated Burligame, a team they will open their 2004 season against, and American High out of Fremont. But lost to Terra Nova, a team they defeated in non-league last year, and Salinas, a annual opponent on their league schedule. The other team in Gilroy’s pool was Logan High, a perennial power from the North Coast Section, but the teams did not go head-to-head.
“It’s a lot of fun. The kids love 7-on-7 stuff,” Yafai said. “It allows you to compete, not just to work on all your schemes but also to compete, too. A big part of it is talent evaluation.”
The 7-on-7 format pits quarterbacks, tight ends, and receivers against linebackers and defensive backs. Gilroy used three different quarterbacks, Peter Mickartz, last year’s varsity back-up who took 60 percent of the snaps, as well as Nick Tovar and Chris Velasco, who platooned on junior varsity last season and shared the other 40 percent of the snaps.
Coaches use the tournament to evaluate their skill position players such as who is consistently running good routes and who is catching balls and making passes on offense and who is making plays on balls and being physical and disciplined on defense.
“I really liked what I saw defensively,” said Yafai, whose squad competed in San Jose for the first time in five seasons.
Gilroy has six returning defensive backs who all saw time last season on varsity, so they refreshed their knowledge of the same schemes used during the 2003 season.
The passing competition is good for offenses to work on timing routes combinations and for defenses to work on different coverages, but the Tri-County Athletic League is predominantly a running league.
“Salinas does pretty good in passing tournaments, but they’re a running team. Their coach even said this is the most we’ll pass all year,” Yafai said. “Your offensive passing game is definitely a part of game. Year in and year out we pass more than anyone in our league so it benefits us more than any other schools in our league.”
Gilroy will compete in another 7-on-7 tournament at Cupertino High School on Friday in a 16-school field. This event also includes a linemen competition, which is comprised of bench press, obstacle course and tug-of-war.
“We’re the defending runner-up for the previous two years at Cupertino,” Yafai said. “It’s kind of a tough situation because it’s a passing tournament. You want to be competitive and you’d like to win, but for the most part it’s just to get practice in.”
Last year, the Mustangs won their pool and made it into the championship game, losing to Westmont, and the previous year, they did the same, losing to Milpitas in the finals.
“Winning’s not the big priority, but the more you win, the more games you play so that’s a bonus, too,” Yafai said.
Gilroy will also compete in another passing tournament at Menlo College in a couple of weeks and then a Wednesday night passing league in the same 7-on-7 format.
In addition, Gilroy High will host the Hoggie Feast on July 13, a linemen competition with a field of 16 schools.
In the meantime, the varsity team works out, lifts weights, and trains on campus daily starting at 6 a.m. The incoming freshmen and junior varsity players come in at 4 p.m.
“The levels of commitment and vigor vary from school to school,” Yafai said. “One of the reasons we moved to six in the morning is so they can still go to summer school, work, and play legion baseball. But a lot of the elite programs in area like De La Sale and Hollister High work out in morning because it shows commitment.”
