Football’s expectations for next year

Don Lugo football has made a name for itself the past couple of years.There is no doubt a legacy has been built and established here at Don Lugo. This past year Lugo finished with a record of 4-6 after a rocky start, and resulted in capping off the regular season with three straight wins to make a playoff push. 

With a young, junior-heavy class, the conquistadors fell to Burbank high school in the first round of the CIF playoffs. However, being a young team means a lot of returnees for the conquistadors. Next year’s captains consist of Johnnie Valdez, Jojo Galindo, Gary Garcia, Stephen Cabrera, and Jared Duffy who are all juniors as of now will be coming back to finish off their high school career at Don Lugo.

All captains do believe it was a disappointing season because of the high goals they had set prior to the beginning of the season. Jojo Galindo states,” I feel this season could have gone way better, injures are a part of the game but when you got a small roster with key players getting hurt, it makes us on a different page.” With key players out games dealing with adversity and hard injuries many players had to step up and do their best to fight for the team.

The emphasis for next years team is hitting the weight room, Jared Duffy believes it should be everyone’s sanctuary. Duffy was asked what steps he looks forward into taking to lead his team to a better season and he stated,” We will be working super hard in the weight room and we will be working on our conditioning. I’m going to start making sure my team knows and understands what they’re doing.” After learning from the past season these young captains look ready to prepare and lead like that have never before. Stephen Cabrera states,” I’m planning to be a better leader for my team and becoming a better athlete. I want to help set the bar high with the other leaders of the team for the rest to follow.”

The team struggled to get the offense and defense to get into sync with few mistakes. When the team was in sync it looked like they could not be stopped and they could beat anyone that came their way. Thankfully for the young football team they are, they can analyze what they did wrong and come back stronger to look in sync from the first game of the year.

Don Lugo will also be moving out of division 7 and moving down to division 8. With only West Covina, Claremont, and Chaffey being the competition, there will be only three league games to play and will play 7 pre season games ahead of that and have a bye week. This can then have a bigger risk of a loss in the new league which puts league champions and playoff contention at threat.

The captains of the football team have very high expectations for next year’s football season as Stephen Cabrera states,” I believe our team will make a deep playoff run after becoming league champions in our new league. I have very high expectations for our team next season.” With the responsibility to lead their team, the captains look to fulfill these goals along with the rest of the talented football players.