Radnor

By ANDREW PARENT

Special to the Times

RADNOR — Since Radnor enjoyed back-to-back five-win seasons in 2009 and 2010, it has strung together four wins in three seasons.

The Raiders have long endured the trials and tribulations of losing, and the general consensus of their summer has been clear: They’re fed up.

“Sure we have fun out here, but they’re tired of coming up short on games,” coach Tom Ryan said. “They’ve gotten to a point where they have that quiet confidence they seem to have. Time will tell, but we’re very excited about it.”

Excitement surrounding its football program has been at a premium around the complex at Prevost Field in recent years.

A winless 2011 campaign kick-started the 4-28 run for Radnor during the previous three seasons, a stretch that has most Raider football types itching not only for a few more tallies under the win column in 2014, but for a substantial increase in the team’s ability to compete each Friday night.

“We’re taking it week by week this year and we just want to compete,” Ryan said. “Wins and losses will come as they may, but we just want to compete and get better every week.”

Fresh off its best season since 2010 with a 3-8 campaign, the Raiders took its annual homage to Camp Green Lane, an overnight summer camp for a three-day getaway at the start of training camp consisting solely of football, bonding and more football.

There, they stressed the fundamentals. The Raiders took part in the traditional training camp drills, team-building exercises and conditioning activities in the swimming pool.

At night, Ryan put his players up in Cabins, separated by position. The endgame: to help spawn a familiarity between his players, veterans and first-years alike.

“There’s a lot of value in the bonding that goes on,” Ryan said. “I divide them up in cabins, not by grade, but by position so the older guys are mentoring the younger guys. Besides football we do some other activities like swimming and team building stuff. We come back exhausted and this year, feel we got better for 72 hours.

“It’s hard work but when we leave on Friday, the kids are glad we went. They came back exhausted and that’s what we’re looking for.”

For Ryan and his squad, the trip was hardly a leisurely one.

“When we went there, we had the mindset that it’s a business trip,” senior center Alex Andersen said. “It’s not all fun and games, it’s all football. When we’re there, we go there to work and get better. We unify as a team there, too.”

Having improved by a pair of wins last season from 2012, and returning plenty of players from that squad, the Raiders find themselves not only in a position where they believe they can compete game-in, game-out this season, but to where they can steal a few more victories in 2014.

Andersen and guard John Lord will anchor an offensive line that’ll be assigned to protect the likes of running backs Mike Thompson and Arron Fuller, along with one of the Raiders’ two candidates under center.

Senior Chris Leighton and junior Vinnie Kelly each saw time at quarterback last season, but Ryan said he’ll opt with one of them as the full-time starter, as opposed to the platoon between the two signal callers last year.

“The best player is going to play,” Ryan said. “There will be a role for everybody whether it’s special teams or what, but the quarterbacks are competing and they both embrace that.”

“We compete each day and it makes each other better,” Leighton said. “We’re kind of both the same in style, and we both like to run.”

Jake Schug and Alex DeNolfo (offensive line/defensive line) will both play critical roles on both sides of the ball for the Raiders, as could junior Griffin Monaghan, though Ryan said he’ll rotate in juniors and sophomores in an attempt to limit the time his starters play two ways.

“There will be some guys who play one way, and there will be other guys who play one and a half ways,” Ryan said. “But we are hoping to eliminate two-way true starters because of the conditioning factor and the fatigue entering that fourth quarter.”

As the team enters its season opener against Valley Forge Military Academy at home, Ryan believes the Raiders can carry a change of attitude into the fall.

“I think this group expects to win,” Ryan said. “That can go a long way. They have that all-business attitude this summer.”