NEWMAN, Calif. – Aaron Souza saw a lot of pluses and some minuses with his team facing three different schools.
The Orestimba High football coach and his assistant coaches watched their team in action at the 13th annual Orestimba Westside Scrimmage on Coach Roger Pauletto Field at Warrior Stadium last Friday. The host Warriors faced the Atwater, Lathrop and West of Tracy teams in pool play. A total of eight schools participated.
Orestimba first faced Atwater, which is from the Central California Conference. Souza was mostly satisfied with his team competing against a high school whose enrollment is nearly double that of Orestimba–Atwater hovering around 2,000 while the Warriors are close to 1,000.
The Warriors, behind quarterback Jacob Valenzuela, moved the chains against the Falcons’ defense.
“I thought, offensively, we were able to move the ball and did a really good job,” Souza said. “Jacob did a good job of getting rid of the football. I thought (running back Nicolas) Cuevas did a great job running the ball.”
Souza also praised the play of wide receiver Dylan McCauley, who caught the ball during the offensive series.
“I just felt like everywhere, our offense played very well,” said Souza, whose Warriors run the shotgun spread formation. “Our offense played very well against a higher level of competition in Atwater.”
But the Warriors’ defense against the Falcons’ offense was a different story early.
“At first I thought we were a little bit on our heels,” Souza said. “I thought it took us a few plays to settle down.”
Then Orestimba lined up to play Lathrop. The Warriors also started this game on offense.
“Again, we did a good job moving the ball,” Souza said. “The Valenzuela-to-McCauley combination looked really good. Our offensive pass protection played really well.”
Souza also felt Cuevas and another Warrior running back in Allen Garcia were effective in the team’s struggles against the Spartans’ defense.
However, the Warriors had some short-term situations that Souza said “we have to clean up.”
It was déjà vu for Orestimba when it switched to defense and Lathrop, who runs the Wing-T formation, from moving the ball early in their scrimmage.
“It took us a few games to adjust to the speed and figure out exactly how we wanted to play things,” Souza said.
Towards the end of the game against Lathrop, Souza was pleased with how his Warriors improved against the Spartans’ offense.
Orestimba finished the match with his defense against West. Cuevas, who plays inside linebacker, had some big hits.
Souza felt the performances of junior defensive tackle Robert Corella, sophomore guard Rylan Ceja and cornerback Donovan Torres were very solid and strong in the games.
Overall, the key for Souza and his assistant coaches was to do the basics coming into the game.
“Our biggest thing was making sure we lined up (set up) correctly, making sure we play with a lot of effort,” Souza said. “We wanted to make sure we made a good tackle. I felt our effort was probably the best… 11 hats to the ball.”
Open field tackling is an area Souza pointed out his Warriors need to improve on as the season progresses.
“There were some aspects that I wasn’t happy with our open field tackling,” Souza said.
The other high schools in contention and facing each other in the second pool were Patterson, Pitman of Turlock, El Capitan of Merced and Ceres.
The match had an 11-minute format, allowing only 1 minute to go from offense to defense after 11 minutes.
Souza was pleased with the outcome of this year’s games.
“I felt like the scrimmage itself was on time,” Souza said. “It was a very productive scrimmage. I thought it was a great night.”
Mike Bush is a multimedia journalist born and raised in the Stanislaus and Merced County areas. Follow him on X/Twitter @MikeBMultimedia and Instagram @mikebushphotography.