The Future is Bright for Northgate Football

By Zack Torrey, Assistant Varsity Football Coach

www.NorthgateLivingCA.com

The Northgate Football team did not qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2011, but the tale of the 2018 season is far more positive than their record would indicate. The Broncos were young this year to begin with. They did not have a large senior class, and when they were bit by the injury bug early in the season, it forced some younger players into larger roles than they would have normally taken on.

But the young players stepped up, the small band of Seniors led, and the team improved dramatically each and every week!

Eric Prough (WR/ LB), Owen Pulver (WR/DB), Jonathan Campbell (RB/DB), Dominic Balestrieri (OL/DL), Max Berrien (RB/LB), Francisco Espinoza (OL/DL) and Nathan Wu (QB/WR/DB) were among a strong group of Juniors who truly came of age through incredibly valuable game repetitions. And Sophomores Cooper Champion (OL/DL), Tesini Ma’ake (OL/DL), and Andrew Daigle (WR/LB) were among the stand outs from a highly productive Sophomore class. The Broncos even saw a Freshman make a strong contribution in WR/DB Johnny Walker.

The development of each and every one of the players this year was quite remarkable.

Everyone kept an incredibly positive attitude, and it showed with max effort performances each and every Friday night!

The program would like to thank the Seniors ~ Blaine Schmidt, Blake Stokes, Xiang Ding, Adrian Burke, Adam Joseph, Joe Lerma and Nico Lerma ~ for their strong effort and positive attitudes this year. We will miss you all! The future is bright for the program which will be returning a bunch of starters who will be hungry for wins in 2019!