Entering his second season, La Jolla High School (LJHS) football coach Rey Hernandez doesn\u2019t know what to expect in the win-loss columns from his mostly-revamped roster. What he does expect of his group of young men is to steadily improve over the course of the year. “You\u2019ve got to get better every day,” Hernandez said. “You want to be competitive, and if you can be competitive, then you can win on a weekly basis.” The Vikings finished 5-7 in 2009, including a first-round playoff win against Palo Verde (near Blythe). Their season ultimately came to an end against Division IV runner-up Valley Center in the second round. With much of the core of last year\u2019s team lost to graduation, this season\u2019s squad has a chance to prove itself. Starting quarterback Cory Wagner is one of the few returning players who contributed significantly in 2009. “I\u2019m finally getting the chance to lead this team to hopefully a very winning season,” Wagner said. “I\u2019ve got to make sure everybody\u2019s hustling and doing what they\u2019re supposed to do. It all starts with practice.” The Vikings\u2019 Wing T offense revolves around a strong running attack with a lot of misdirection intended to confuse opposing defenses. The speedy Wagner will be in control of distributing the ball evenly and precisely to his three running backs in the backfield and to his solo wide receiver. Wagner will use play-action to keep opponents honest. “We\u2019re looking to be a strong running team but we\u2019re hoping that play-action pass is going to be problematic for people,” Hernandez said. On the defensive side of the ball, Hernandez hopes his team will show improvement. Behind a 3-4 linebacker-heavy scheme, La Jolla should get nice contributions from two seniors \u2014 defensive back Alex Damico and defensive lineman Patrick Haggerty. La Jolla opens up its regular season at home against Mt. Carmel on Sept. 3. The matchup serves as a way for players to show their coaches and fans how far they have come as a team since grueling summer workouts got under way. “In the first game, I\u2019m looking for execution, effort and hustle,” Hernandez said. “Hopefully, we don\u2019t have a lot of mental mistakes. That would be a good indicator that we\u2019ve prepared well. We worked pretty hard this summer, so that\u2019s encouraging.” The Vikings get a shot at redemption on Sept. 17 when they travel to Valley Center in a rematch of last year\u2019s playoff loss. Other notable games include a rivalry showdown against Mission Bay High on Nov. 5. La Jolla wraps up its regular season on Nov. 12 when it welcomes Western League newcomer Madison High to La Jolla for the annual homecoming game. Hernandez said that although Mission Bay and Point Loma have dominated the Western League in recent years, those schools are undergoing major overhauls not unlike that of the Vikings. “The team that eventually wins it is going to be the team that improves the most from the beginning to the end,” Hernandez said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Entering his second season, La Jolla High School (LJHS) football coach Rey Hernandez doesn\u2019t know what to expect in the win-loss columns from his mostly-revamped roster. What he does expect of his group of young men is to steadily improve over the course of the year. “You\u2019ve got to get better every day,” Hernandez said. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":257172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"La Jolla High eyes steady improvement on gridiron","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}