It was senior night. The last regular season game. The last game for twenty-one seniors. But they were down four with only two minutes left. Their season has started off strong and they hoped they would be able to end on the same note. Then the offense went down the field met by a touchdown pass from Quarterback, Nick Ortinau. They kept their lead in the remaining 30 seconds and won their first senior night in years!

The football season has come to an end, but the memories are ones that will be kept with the players. The team has grown stronger off the field as well as on the field.

The football team has started to maintain its players and has developed a substantial program that has also grown closer. The positive program is what drove 21 players including Seth Skebo, to play up to their senior year.

“We had 21 seniors, normally we only have a few. As long as I’ve been around the program there has only really been a few seniors every year,” Skebo said. “It always felt like the group dwindled down over the 4 years. But with our group, we all stayed and a lot of us started and had an impact.”

With the varsity team as a whole, all the players made an impact on the team. The team grew and developed together to reach their goals. Senior Nick Ortinau, the team’s quarterback, has taken notice of this progress.

“I’m very proud of our team and how every single player grew this season and learned. There was a different player every game making big plays and stepping up,” Ortinau said.

By taking away the emphasis of numbers on a team, you uncover the truth behind the team, and in this case, it’s the truth that the football team continues to fuse into a close-knit community that supports each other. But what came about to get this team so strong?

“I think the change this season was that we all saw the potential we had, and we all truly loved the game and wanted to go and win every game” Ortinau said.

A team truly is only as good as they believe they can be, and for the jv football team, they have found great improvement in practicing with the varsity team. JV Sophomore player, Quentin James, enjoyed the experience of practicing with varsity.

“It was good practice for me because it’s more of a challenge,” James said. 

Besides the varsity improvement, the jv team has been working extremely hard as well. They hope to continue to see growth in the upcoming years, so they can keep saying “I believe this has been one of our more successful seasons in recent history,” Ortinau said.