High School Football Preview: Naselle hopes to 'surprise some people' this season
Shooting Stars Align – With no Lindstrom or Strange on the roster, time for new Comets to shine
Jordan Nailon for Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
High School Football
The Basics
Team: Naselle Comets
Head Coach: Kevin McNulty, 4th season
Helmets: Comet Gold
League: 1B Southwest Washington League
Last Year’s Record: 11-1, 8-1 league
First place in league; lost 52-28 to Wilbur-Creston-Keller in State semifinals
NASELLE — The Comets had 32 players signed up to play football by the third day of practice. That group included a baker’s dozen freshmen in the mix.
And those aren excellent numbers. Especially at the 1B level where teams only have to put eight players on the field at any given time. However, Naselle will only have a handful of starters returning on either side of the ball after graduating five seniors in the offseason. And complicating matters further is the fact that for the first time in more than several blue moons the Comets’ roster won’t feature even one player with the surname Strange or Lindstrom.
“They were five dandies,” Naselle head coach Kevin McNulty said.
Last year’s 11-1 record, and a trip to the State semifinals, confirms that claim.
But now the Comets have to find, and enhance, the next set of dandies on the gridiron. And they’ve been hammering on the small details in the preseason so that the shadows don’t grow too long under Friday night lights.
“The expectation is to go in and improve every week,” McNulty said. “To do that, we’ve got to do the little things.”
And how, exactly, do the Naselle coaches plan on bringing along this year’s green crop of Comets. According to McNulty, it’s all rather straight forward.
“We only have one rule; Don’t let down your teammates,” McNulty noted. “It works well, but you need the kids to buy in. And if they do, I think we’ll be all right and we might even be able to surprise some people this year.”
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