Every year, there are factors that motivate high school football teams to give\u00a0their all in pursuit of victories and league championships. But the Point Loma Pointers have one huge motivation to go along with another debut as the season gets underway.
\nThe obvious choice, and clearly the brightest answer, sits atop four 72-foot poles at the corners of Bennie Edens Field inside Pete Ross Stadium: “Friday Night Lights” has finally become a\u00a0reality on the 93-year-old campus and this team will be the first to take the field\u00a0under thousands of watts of pure LED bliss, something players in past years thought was going to be their privilege.
\nBut challenges by neighbors, after holding up the project for a few years, have run their course and a Superior Court decision in late June drove a legal dagger into the heart of opponents.
\nThe Pointers are also celebrating some unique and different new uniforms for their home games, an all-black outfit with school colors of maroon and gold used as accents in what is described as a “metallic look.” Most important: the players love ’em, and in prep sports, that love\u00a0translates into pride and\u00a0effort on the field. Offense
\nAt the helm of the Pointer offense again will be senior\u00a0Kyle Grady. The 6-foot 3-inches tall senior completed 46 of 110 passes last season for 586 yards with seven TDs and six interceptions. Ready to relieve Grady are returners\u00a0Alexander Xykis\u00a0and\u00a0Anthony Karty.
\nThe QBs will have some big targets to throw to this season like returning receivers\u00a0JL Skinner\u00a0(6-foot 5-inches tall, four catches, 48 yards) and\u00a0Malik Moore\u00a0(6-feet tall, five catches, 81 yards). Other receivers with good hands include returners\u00a0Austin Haines, Wes Windmiller\u00a0and newcomers\u00a0Tristan Shafer, Matewos Bogale and Anthony Martinez.
\nThe Pointers like to throw to tall tight ends and this year they include newcomers\u00a0Carlos\u00a0Amarrillaz\u00a0(6-foot 5-inches tall),\u00a0Alejandro Peterson\u00a0(6-foot 2-inches tall),\u00a0Luke Modesto\u00a0(6-foot 3-inches tall) and\u00a0Trevor O’Toole\u00a0(6-foot 1-inch tall). Also seeing time at the position will be Karty and newcomer\u00a0Jacob Maruky.
\nThe quarterbacking trio in head coach Mike Hastings’ offense must also learn to pivot, move, hand off and pitch the ball very fast and with deception, often to men in motion. Another kennel of Pointers is ready to take those handoffs and pitches and turn them into points.
\nLast year’s top\u00a0running back returns.\u00a0Josh Ball\u00a0carried 103 times and picked up 549 yards and scored five TDs, an 5.3 average. What the stats don’t show is Ball’s YAC (Yards After Contact) as he proved to be tough to bring down and fought until the whistle. Moore gained 108 yards in 16 carries and\u00a0Cameron Auva’a\u00a0gained 47 on a half-dozen carries. Big\u00a0Mathew Fa’alele\u00a0(6-foot 2-inches tall, 245 pounds) added 112 yards on 20 carries while\u00a0Brian Yepez\u00a0and\u00a0Christian Terzoli\u00a0also return.
\nNew faces in the backfield\u00a0will be\u00a0Zac Makis,\u00a0Johkyerian Shealey,\u00a0Dominic Daughtry\u00a0and\u00a0Kaden Gill. The Trenches
\nPointer linemen are flexible. They all learn a position\u00a0on offense and defense and some play both ways. That means the whole group\u00a0typically gets into the action, and few end the game with clean uniforms.
\nReturning seniors lead this group of warriors, and they include\u00a0Davey Folsom,\u00a0Josh\u00a0Fierro,\u00a0Miguel Rodriguez\u00a0and\u00a0Camden Koolen,\u00a0Meshach Epperley,\u00a0Clifford Haywood,\u00a0Karty\u00a0and Fa’alele, who could be a beast,\u00a0plus\u00a0Jake Silva, who who made the team last year as a sophomore. New faces to the group are junior\u00a0Cannon Nutting\u00a0and sophomore\u00a0Danny Sheldon. Linebackers
\nAmong the returners are Terzoli, Auva’a, Yepez, Ball and Koolen. Senior\u00a0Jack\u00a0Early\u00a0joins the ranks. Defensive Backs\u00a0
\nA corps of Pointer\u00a0vets will try to limit pass completions by Pointer opponents through the air or pick up runners who make it to the Dogs’ secondary. Returners include seniors\u00a0Michael Blakely, Moore, Haines and Ball along with junior Skinner. Fresh faces include Makis, Shealey, Daughtry, Bogale, Gill and Martinez. Special Teams
\nPlacekicking and punting will be handled by two newcomers. Junior\u00a0Ricky Borjon\u00a0and sophomore\u00a0Andy Medina\u00a0will compete for the job. Ironically, both are younger brothers of previous Pointer kickers (Oscar Borjon and Jaime Medina). Long-snapping will be sophomore Modesto while Grady holds.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every year, there are factors that motivate high school football teams to give\u00a0their all in pursuit of victories and league championships. But the Point Loma Pointers have one huge motivation to go along with another debut as the season gets underway. The obvious choice, and clearly the brightest answer, sits atop four 72-foot poles at […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":284745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Pointers ready for Wildcats as football season starts under the lights","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561,11553],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284744","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=284744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}