Souderton

By Kev Hunter

khunter@thereporteronline.com

With a revamped defense and an offense intent on playing mistake-free ball, Souderton Area heads into the season as a confident, driven group.

“Everyone’s enthusiastic,” said senior offensive tackle and defensive end Evan Sweet. “We have a lot of young guys ready to come hit and go to work. I’m excited for the new season and I’m sure everyone else is. We’re going to come in and surprise ‘em.”

Big Red looks like a team that could greatly improve upon last year’s disappointing 2-8 finish, which was due in large part to multiple key injuries.

An enhanced training and stretching program was put in place during the preseason in an effort to help cut down on those costly injuries. What’s also different about the Indians is the approach on offense.

“We scaled it back a little bit,” said coach Ed Gallagher, who has led the Indians to the postseason four times during his tenure. “We’re running a lot of our traditional Wing-T things better then we did at this point last year. So I feel pretty good about that. We don’t have as much in now but we are running things better. I’ve been really happy with our execution and I thought we did very well in our first scrimmage.”

Joey Curotto takes over the quarterback duties for Big Red, replacing his older brother, A.J., who graduated a year ago. He’ll have some experience in the backfield to hand the ball to, as Jamar White and Nate Landes handle the halfback duties and Blake Gular fills the spot at fullback.

Sweet helps solidify the line, along with center Nico Johnson.

“We’re a very young team and very inexperienced,” Johnson said, “but what that is setting up for is a drive for perfection in the offense’s play running and the defense’s ability to recognize and study and learn the teams, in comparison to years past where we just played by the down.”

With three linebackers returning, the defense has some pretty good experience to build around. New defensive coordinator Mike Heath will keep the 3-4 alignment, but has pepped things up a bit.

“We’re still playing a 3-4 primarily but our coverages and the way we’re playing things are a little bit different,” Gallagher said. “We’ll mix it up, and we do have an even front that we’ll throw in there, but for the most part we’re an odd front and we’re playing a little bit more cover-three than we did in the past.”

Following the SOL realignment, Souderton will be part of a powerful Suburban One League National Conference this season. The Indians get things started with a non-conference game with Plymouth-Whitemarsh next Friday.

“PW has some really big linemen and some really good skill kids,” Gallagher said. “They certainly are a capable team. We’re gonna have to play really well when we go down there.”

Despite last year’s rough finish, the Indians were able to develop several of their younger players throughout the season.

“We put a lot of young players in there and we did that for a reason,” Sweet said. “Now we have a lot more experience and we have a lot more talent. Everyone put in a lot of work in the offseason and we’re ready to come get it.”

“From the past three years of being involved,” said Johnson, “it’s a much higher standard of work ethic and attitude compared to past players and years.”

Now, Big Red hopes to apply all of that preparation, along with its tenacity on both sides of the football, and bring the playoffs back to Souderton.

“We want to go as far as we possibly can with this team and hopefully we can do well not only this season but prepare the players for the following years,” Johnson said, “so that we have the best chance possible to succeed in the upcoming years.”

Follow Kev Hunter on Twitter@khunter10