Vintage looks for continued success in 2018 following last year’s successful campain

By Kyle Foster

kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

Things couldn’t have gone better last season for Dylan Leach in what was his second year as head coach at Vintage.

Last season, the Crushers went 7-3 overall and posted a 3-1 mark in the Monticello Empire League.

The highlight of the season though for Vintage came in week 11 when when they ended their 11-year Big Game losing streak by beating crosstown rival Napa.

However, it’s a new season and there’s been plenty changes for the burgundy and gold. The biggest change being the move from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section and the Monticello Empire League to the CIF North Coast Section and the Vine Valley Athletic League where they’ll now face other Napa County schools in league play.

“Well yeah, anytime you don’t have to travel is the best,” Leach explained of the VVAL. “I’m going to miss the MEL immensely; I’m going to miss Vacaville playing against those guys obviously, and Wood on a regular basis, but it’ll be fun and a new challenge and hopefully we’ll be able to make some waves and come out on top.”   

The Crushers non league slate certainly isn’t easy, and it will put them to the test before VVAL play starts. They open up the season August 17th at Wood-Vacaville; on August 24th they host Acalanes-Lafayette; they’ll visit Lincoln-Stockton on August 31st, and end the four-game non league slate at home on September 7th against Bellarmine College Prep-San Jose.

“All those teams have history, and present a different challenge,” Leach said of the non league schedule. “So that’s one thing we wanted to see going in was some speed and some discipline and then also see a multitude of offensive fronts.”

On September 21st, after their bye week, they’ll begin league play at home against Casa Grande-Petaluma. On October 5th they’ll host American Canyon; they’ll visit Justin-Siena the following week on October 12th; two weeks later they’ll end the season with Big Game XLVII (47) as the visitors against crosstown rival Napa High.

Vintage will return a good amount of contributors from last year’s team. Michael Webber, who played quarterback some last season will return along with Drew Hatfield, Troy Ghisletta, and Viliami Schaumkel.

“I think obviously we’re going to miss some key leadership roles and some yardage when it comes to Isaiah Garcia and James (Robert) for sure, and then obviously defensively we’re going to miss some of those guys in the secondary that got a couple years experience, but other then that I that returning wise I like where we’re at,” Leach said of all the returners. “I like where we’re at for now our third year, so a lot of the guys coming up aren’t new anymore to our systems, so it makes it easier on the varsity coaches in a sense that we get to spend a little bit more time on fundamentals and not so much on schemes because we’ve kind of already got the schemes down.”  

New to the team this year as a sophomore is Jacob Aaron, who will be competing for the running back spot according to Leach.

During the summer Vintage competed in the Napa County 7-on-7 passing league. They also participated in the UC Davis 7-on-7 passing tournament.   

“We played well over in Davis in our first passing tournament, we went to the semifinals there and lost to St. Mary’s (Stockton),” Leach said of the summer. “Our (offensive) line went over there and actually did the same thing, lost in the finals to St. Mary’s, so I thought we’ve had a good summer. I don’t take a lot of credence in the seven on, you know I think it’s good competition level and I think it’s good for our defense mainly to see kind of you know some offenses that they’ll see during the year, but you know offensively it’s just not what we do. You know we’re play action team mainly, so it doesn’t go hand-in-hand with us, but I thought we played well and and I thought we created some competition and some discipline.”    

New to the coaching staff this year is Dennis Raines, Larry Vilanueva, and Bob Rosenstiel. Raines and Villanueva both worked with Leach when he was at Napa High.

“It’s a small community, we’re all familiar with each other,” Leach said of the additions to his coaching staff. “Those guys are guys who I’ve had on my radar for a long time, so even when I was down the street working with those guys I think we all kind of knew that if there was an opportunity and chance we’d all kind of get the band back together and meet up.”