Justin-Siena football preview: Braves full of belief and ready to surprise in 2025

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By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)

kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

Sometimes, belief in yourself can go a long way. But when coaches also believe in what they have, it’s a chance to prove others wrong. 

Following a 4-6 mark last season with a 1-5 record in Redwood Empire – Valley Division play, the Braves are full of belief and ready to prove people wrong this season. 

The main reason for this is the fact that their coaches are strong believers in what they’re capable of. 

“I think that’s one of my most favorite things that he says, because, I mean, I’ve played sports all my life, and I’ve always I’ve had, like, a couple of coaches that have never said that to us before, and, like, never really embraced believing in us,” Justin-Siena senior Andres Diaz explained of what it means to have the coaches believing in them. “I think now in this time, realizing that it’s gonna be a hard season, but we’re gonna have to fight through it, having a coaching staff that really take us into like a deeper level, into the heart, and showing us that the ‘Hey, we believe in you.  We’re going to try everything that we can do, and we’re going to be here whenever you guys need us. And we believe in what this team can become, I think, really helps us as a team, morality and everything that we do, and gives us more hope and helps us come out here, coming back stronger and practice harder.”

However, this team will be extremely young. They will also have limited numbers. They only have one senior returner in Diaz. They have a young junior group of players, including Mateo Barbosa, Boden Powell, Evan Lewis, and Chase Teresi. 

One of the new things the Braves will have this season is a new quarterback. All summer long, there has been a quarterback battle between Briden Landry and John Gilley. Each offer pros to the offense, but it remains to be seen who starts the opener. 

“I’ve been really impressed,” Justin-Siena head coach Tyler Streblow said of the two quarterbacks battling for the starting nod. “I think this system that we’ve run, we’ve been very successful in terms of quarterbacks for a long time. I guess it’s almost 10 years now, back to Aiden Willard, who played at Oregon State in 2016, even a little bit before that. But I put a lot on the quarterbacks. So it’s been a transition. Both of them have not played varsity football before, so there’s a lot of things I’m asking them to do that they’ve never been asked to do before. I’ve been coaching them really, really hard. They’ve done a really good job listening, showing up early, asking questions. So I’m excited for both of them this year.”  

When they do look to pass, they have also changed up the offense to involve more run-pass options. This is yet another wrinkle they’ve added to the offense this season. If used effectively, RPOs can be tough to stop. 

“This year, I think we have two quarterbacks who can run and throw,” Streblow explained of the new variation to the offense. “So we’re focused more on going back a little bit to some more options, some more RPOs, and then when people try to come up and bring that extra guy in the box, we’re going to punish them over the top, which is what we always do. It’s similar, and we just adjusted the personnel. So I like where we’re going, trying to get the ball out quick and get the ball to our playmakers in space.” 

Another new tweak this year has been introducing a new tweak to the offense. They will be going with a bit more of a rushing attack, thanks to having four running backs at their disposal who can do plenty of different things.  

“I think they all have a bunch of different strengths, and so I think we’re going to use them in different ways,” Streblow added on the running backs he has available to use during games. “That’s why I talk about, you know, the offense isn’t necessarily going to be totally different, but we’re going to adjust to our personnel. And it’s nice to have guys who can rotate in and out, keep fresh.” 

The summer focus was on getting better each day

While most teams like to see how they stack up against others during the summer, the Braves took a bit of a different approach. 

The only competition they had all summer was a few 7-on-7 passing league games with Napa and St. Helena. This was more to break up the summer grind. 

“I think it gave us a vision of, ‘Okay, we can compete with these guys,’” Diaz said of the competition and how it helped them. “Even though we don’t have as many people, they have a lot more, we still have a chance. I think it gave us a reality check in and saying like, ‘Hey, even though these guys might have a bigger team, we can still keep up with anyone who we play with.” 

When they didn’t do anything else, the focus was to always get better and improve each day with a young group. 

The Braves are doing things differently with the schedule

While most teams like to have their bye week in the middle of the season, Justin-Siena will be doing that a little differently in 2025. 

Before even playing a game, the Braves will have their bye week during week 0 before playing for 10 straight weeks. 

After the bye, they’ll host St. Helena on September 5th in the Vine Bowl. This will be the fourth year in a row that the local rivals have played at the beginning of the season.

“I think it was a very smart decision by the coaches, because this is a very young team, and we need as much practice as we can get and give as much leverage and use every time we can get, and being able to see how that everyone else does in the league, and before we play our week one,” Diaz said of the opening up the season a week later than everyone. “I think we can come out and surprise people for our first week and see what and show everyone what we’re all about.” 

Following that, it will be a pair of road non-league games. The first will be a trip to former VVAL rival Sonoma Valley on September 12th. This is another rivalry game for the school, as they get lots of kids from Sonoma. 

The lone new opponent on the schedule comes in the form of Pinole Valley on September 19th. This will be the first time the two have met since they met in the CIF North Coast Section Division 6 championship game in 2022. 

Redwood Empire – Valley play will begin next week on September 26th, when they host Tamalpais-Mill Valley. 

Justin-Siena will then have another pair of road games after this, when they visit Petaluma on October 3rd and then American Canyon on October 10th.

Their final home games will take place in the next two weeks. It begins with a game against Casa Grande on October 17th and then against Redwood-Larkspur on October 24th. 

A pair of road games rounds out the season. On Halloween night, Justin-Siena will visit Napa High at Memorial Stadium. It will be the first game the program has played at Memorial Stadium in three years. 

“I think that’s like the most cool game that I could ever play in my high school career,” Barbosa said of playing a game at Memorial Stadium. “I’ve played out there before for lacrosse and some other stuff, and just like being on that field is a whole different vibe. Like you feel like you can run faster, you feel like you’re stronger. It just feels amazing.” 

The regular season comes to an end next week with a Saturday 2 pm start at Novato on November 8th. This will also be the final non-league game, which, for the second year, is in a different spot in the schedule than normal.

Only one coaching change in 2025

There’s just one change to the coaching staff this season. This means most of the coaching staff is back. 

That lone change comes in Michael Fitzgerald taking over coaching the running backs and linebackers.