UC High’s Varsity Football Team has high hopes to finish the season strong and continues to improve in games and practice.

   After winning UC High’s Homecoming  game against Scripps Ranch, Senior Linebacker Kai Doyle said, “It felt great to win. It’s been a long season filled with challenges and it feels great to come out with a win, especially at home during Homecoming.”

   He  added, “Our preparation  was  just a  normal week for us, nothing special. Our coaches gave us a game plan and we executed.”

   Despite the team’s current record, Junior Center Devin McClain-Ruiz believes that the team can, “…make a good comeback.” McClain has been playing the sport for 11 years, with plans to pursue the sport in college. McClain stated, “I feel like we could pick up our pace, as our performance this year has been a little worse than last year.”

   McClain said that his personal performance this year has been, “…pretty good, as I’ve been playing as center for almost eight years.” As a center, McClain has to snap the ball to the quarterback to initiate every play, and then block players on the defensive line from getting to the quarterback.

   When it comes to their work ethic, both he and his team plan to, “…continue pushing harder during practice,” with McClain saying, “I practice about four days a week, and the mentality for that is to work 110 percent regardless of what we’re doing. I like practice, and I always have liked it because that’s where most of the memories are made.”

   McClain further added, “I do feel like we can make a comeback if we can work together and figure out what we have to fix to improve our performance, like our offense not always getting through the opponent’s defense quickly enough. My hope for this year is that we continue with the same pattern we’ve had throughout summer and make the playoffs, because I feel like with this team we can do it. Still, we have to stick together and make sure we fix everything before that.”

   Doyle said, “Right now, we practice every day for three hours, and our work ethic is that you have to put in 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time. No matter how the season turns out, bonding with my teammates and grinding with them will be the highlight of it.”

   When it comes to the team’s performance, Doyle said, “I hope we can step it up, and we’re definitely trying. We’re missing some pieces, but we’re filling up the spaces that were left from last year, and it is hard to fill in the shoes of winning CIF. I’m hoping to win all the future games, and while I don’t expect that to happen, I’ll keep hoping.”

   Another player for the team, Kicker Brady Richardson, stated “We’re not doing too good this year, but we’re looking to win. I’m filling in the spot of last year’s kicker, and a lot of the juniors this year have had to step up to the positions that opened up. The start of the season has been  rough, but as we settle into these spots I feel like we can get back on track.”

   Richardson has seen some highs, like “…making and recovering an onside kick,” and unfortunately, some lows like “…the loss against Brawley,” but just like his teammates, he hopes that the team will win some upcoming games, including Senior Night against Madison.