Hillsboro Trojans pointing toward a winning season

Experienced returners bolstered by influx of youth

By KAITLYN ALANIS

Staff writer

As the Hillsboro High School Trojans football team looks to build on a 3-6 record last year, coach Devin Metzinger said the goal this year is not just to improve, but to win.

“Our goal is to have a winning season,” he said. “Four-and-five would still be an improvement, but we want to break the hump and have a winning season.”

To do so, Metzinger said the team is relying on about 10 returning seniors and starters.

“Our strength is going to be our experience,” he said. “For the most part, we bring back a lot of starters and a lot of guys who had playing time last year.”

Metzinger said he is hopeful this will counteract their new freshmen on the team. There are about 12 new players on the team.

“Our weakness right now is going to be depth,” he said. “With having such a large number of young guys, we won’t really have that depth on Friday nights, but hopefully we can grow that.”

He expects the younger players to look up to senior quarterback Kaden Kleiner and senior tight end/cornerback Jacob Funk.

“We’ve also got three senior offensive linemen who are going to be very key for us because we’ve also got a good number of young offensive linemen they can help bring along.”

Metzinger said the mix of young and old players should be good for the team both now and in the future.

“For our varsity numbers, it’s pretty well that we have a lot of older guys who have experience,” he said. “And it’s good for years to come because we have such a good freshman class.”

Over the course of summer workouts and the first week of practice, Metzinger said he has seen the players grow and develop as he had hoped.

“We definitely got a lot stronger over the summer and as we go into the next few weeks we have to make sure are freshman — our young guys — are coming along in these next two weeks,” Metzinger said. “We throw a lot at them in the first two weeks and so they’ve picked up on it well, but we just have to make sure that keeps going.”

The Trojans are looking forward to their first game, an away game against the Lyons Lions, which will take place at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1. Last year, the Lions beat the Trojans 35-0.

“We’re just looking forward to getting started,” Metzinger said. “I told the guys the first two weeks are the hardest just because you’re going for two weeks without a game, you’re going through two a day and through another week of no game, but finally you make it to game week and it’s exciting then.”