New coaches get first look at their systems
LANTANA — A pair of area coaches made their sideline debuts Wednesday night at a four-team spring football jamboree at Santaluces High School.
John I. Leonard’s Keith Chattin and Suncoast’s Brian Pulaski, who took over their programs in December and March, respectively, joined Santaluces coach Brian Coe and Coconut Creek-Monarch coach Willie Dodaro at the spring practice finale for all four teams.
Chattin, a longtime head coach in Georgia and Florida, looked forward to getting a look at his team in game situations.
He took over a Lancers team that finished 2-7 last year but has made numerous changes since then.
“We’re going through a completely different offense and defense,” Chattin said. “Our coaching staff is brand new. We want to make sure that we execute and we understand how we can evaluate people, just make sure we do things right, play the right way, not get into all the back and forth with all the talk.
“That’s pretty prevalent down here in West Palm Beach. We just want to make sure we play the game right and keep getting better. We’ve made big strides since I’ve been here.”
John I. Leonard returns nine players from last year’s team, and those players, along with the Lancers’ newcomers, are learning a new offense — spread, no-huddle — as well as a defense that will blitz regularly.
“We want to be aggressive in every facet of the game,” Chattin said.
Pulaski, who spent the past two seasons at Cardinal Newman, also made changes after taking the reins at Suncoast.
Pulaski ran the flexbone triple-option offense with the Crusaders, and brought that with him to Suncoast. He also installed a 3-4 defense.
“We changed everything,” Pulaski said. “We’ve been in the weight room four days a week, and we’re just kind of bringing that blue-collar, lunch pail mentality.”
Wednesday’s games were an opportunity for Pulaski to work on skills like blocking and tackling, taking care of the football, and forcing turnovers.
“Those are kinds of things that were kind of lacking going into the spring,” he said. “We wanted to bring that culture of physicality.”
Here are scores from the earlier games played Wednesday. Each game consisted of two 12-minute quarters:
Monarch 11, Santaluces 8: Joao Mattos’ 47-yard field goal with 1:03 remaining was the winner for the Knights. The Chiefs scored first on a 2-yard, first-quarter run by Val Santiago. A fumble recovery set up the play for Santaluces, which was successful on the 2-point conversion.
Monarch 14, Suncoast 8: The Chargers scored their touchdown on a 75-yard, second-quarter run by Aaron Adams. The score cut the Knights’ lead to within a touchdown, but Suncoast couldn’t equalize before time ran out.