On the cusp of a breakthrough
Hilltoppers hope small but athletic roster can get them to playoffs after near misses
GLOS ALAMOS one was the thunder, lightning and rain from Monday.
Welcoming the Los Alamos Hilltoppers on Wednesday were the dog days of summer in the form of 80-degree heat — the hottest day this week. The reflection of the sun’s rays off the artificial FieldTurf at Sullivan Field made it feel several degrees warmer.
So, Los Alamos athletic trainer Mick Matuszak and a football manager spent the 5-minute break in practice soaking the Hilltoppers with ice water from a cooler. They took turns dipping a white towel into the water and squeezing it down the neck of hunched-over players. It was a two-person job because there were only so many times they could stick their hands into the bucket before the numbing effect of ice-cold water was too much to withstand.
“Here, take over,” Matuszak told the manager as he shook his hands. “Twelve times is about all I can take.”
After an intense first hour of practice, though, the cold sensation that ran down every Hilltopper’s spine and the water that drizzled down their chest and back was a welcome feeling on such a warm day.
“It helps us out,” junior quarterback Dylan Irish said. “It cools us down.”
Relief was temporary, though. Given the state of the program over the past several years, that has not been a common practice for the Hilltoppers. The 2017 season mimics what past teams endured — a small roster reliant on a handful of players trying to navigate the pitfalls of injuries throughout the season and fatigue late in games.
Once again, Los Alamos will have about 25 players on the varsity level, and that prevents many of the players from seeing any time on the sidelines just to get a breather. Last season saw the Hilltoppers at their worst, depth-wise, in the District 2-5A and regular-season finale against Capital. Garett Williams, the ninth-year Los Alamos head coach, said the team was
down to 20 healthy players and he used 13 of them in a 48-13 loss to Capital.
Even though Los Alamos was within 14-7 early in the third quarter, the Hilltoppers wore down in the face of Capital’s relentless rushing attack and the Jaguars scored 34 straight points to secure the win.
“We were pretty beat up by that point, and lost some guys by that
point,” Williams said. “That second half, it just got away from us. I hope that leaves a bad taste in their mouths.”
It was the second straight season Los Alamos entered the final game of the season with a chance for a playoff berth. It was the second straight year that depth and injuries prevented the Hilltoppers from reaching the “promised land” for the first time since 2011. In 2015, Los Alamos could have been tridistrict champions with Capital and Española Valley, but a 42-0 thumping at the hands of Albuquerque Del Norte extinguished those dreams.
“It’s incentive to just work harder next year and keep working and pushing,” Irish said. “There’s always next year.”
While this season appears to hold more of the same, Williams is making a concerted effort to change the program’s tune. Only 19 varsity players practiced on Wednesday, but 27 C-team players dressed in white worked out in a full scrimmage. The plan this season is for the varsity to tough it out again, while the sub-varsity players develop on their own and possibly contributing when the end of the district play rolls around.
Williams has every intention of sticking to the game plan, and he hopes it will end the cycle Los Alamos has endured for most of the decade.
“We’re not trying to make that move where you have to put a kid in a position where he’s not ready,” Williams said. “You get into that cycle where you feel like you have to do that, and it becomes repetitive. It doesn’t change and we have to do that if we’re ever going to get to the point where we want to be — to be successful year in and year out.”
The varsity Hilltoppers understand why Williams is doing it. In fact, they feel their small roster size helps develop a family-like bond and keeps the team pulling together instead of falling apart when the injuries hit.
“We deal with it with a strong brotherhood,” senior lineman Arturo Rodriguez said. “It helps deal with that. We do it for each other. And the coaches instill a sense of pride that we never get off the field.”
If the numbers can improve, it might go hand-in-hand with the sports physical education period the team gained last year. The Hilltoppers saw how that one hour to work out during the school year helped them last year.
“We got to do stuff that we normally couldn’t — watch film, having the weights class with all the football players,” Irish said. “No
one’s going to slack off because you can help pump each other up.”
Williams said the class helped develop the underclassmen physically in the offseason, and he sees a team that is stronger and more physical from top to bottom. It has the coaching staff believing that overall depth will improve because more players are capable of contributing than in the past.
“We had one of the strongest freshmen classes we’ve ever last year,” Rodriguez said. “Down the road, they’ll be even stronger than they were before and that just builds on itself.”
Los Alamos might be toughing it out for another season, but there is hope that the future will be much brighter. And the relief from Williams’ plan might just as soothing as ice water on a hot day.