By: CAMERON ASHFORD
Staff Writer
Last Friday marked El Diamante’s first official varsity football game. The bleachers were filled with hundreds of fans and families eager to see these athletes play. These athletes have been training outstandingly hard and they were more than ready to put their skills to the test on the field. Tulare Union had not been defeated by El Diamante in years, but that winning streak came to a halting crash when El Diamante’s football team stepped on to their home turf. Some of these athletes had been waiting almost 2 years to play in an actual game due to the effects of our global pandemic. Some might find this as a disadvantage but this was not the case for El Diamante. The football team had been using the pandemic to their best advantage. This was more time they could spend doing drills, building muscle mass in the weight room, building cardiovascular endurance, and studying film to strategize their next big game. Although this big game wouldn’t come for a while; El Diamante would be more than prepared for when it did. The game was back to back. Both teams went through multiple sets of running plays and deep passing plays. El Diamante took a different route this season, teaching an aggressive style of offense where the players will do anything necessary to get a first down as quickly as possible. And with this style of offense, the defense was taught the shutdown technique where the linebackers focus on not letting anybody pass them. With all these combined efforts of strategic techniques and practices, El Diamante High School walked off the field with their first varsity victory against one of their biggest rivals. The final score was 47-44. The crowd was very
impressed with both sides of the ball and El Diamante Football fans would leave the stadium satisfied that our boys brought home our first victory.