Blue Eagles aim for a three-peat
Two-time District 11 6A champs are inexperienced, but could surprise opponents again
Nazareth won the District 11 6A football championships in 2019 and 2020, but Blue Eagles coach Tom Falzone doesn’t like the term “defending champ.”
“We’re not defending anything,” he said. “No one is going in here and rip the banner off the wall. This is a new year. So we start over again and that’s where we are as a team.”
Nazareth may not be defending anything, but the fact is that Falzone and the Blue Eagles have risen as a perennial power. That means there’s an expectation that no matter who runs out in the blue and white uniforms on a Friday night they are expected to compete at a high level.
Falzone believes he has a group capable of doing that this season despite a lack of experience.
“These kids work hard,” Falzone said. “They come in and they just work hard and they get down to business.
As a young squad, they’re trying to learn and as coaches, we’re earning our money. We’re trying to teach them and coach them up and get them ready to go. Do we make mistakes? Yes.
Do we make a lot of mistakes? Yes. But that’s going to happen when you have a lot of young guys.”
Falzone doesn’t know if the 2021 season will be anywhere near as successful as the past two years were, but he said the offseason leading into this one was much like the recent past.
“We turned a switch a few years ago and that’s how the offseason became and that mentality has carried through our weight program and Sam Hull who is our strength coach,” Falzone said. “They do it all offseason and that’s carried over to the field and that’s something I am very pleased with.”
Forget, at least for the moment, about being a championship contender.
Falzone hopes his team can just be in the mix of an EPC South that he says has a lot of parity.