DECATUR — As Decatur prepared for picture day, Samuel Xiong entered Bulldog’s coach Shane Holland’s office without knocking. The senior run- ning back had a question for his coach.
“Who invited you in here?” Holland quickly asked.
Before Holland, who is in his second season at the school, could command 10 pushups, Xiong was on the floor pumping them out. Xiong was reminded he needs to knock before entering the office.
Slowly, the culture is changing at Decatur.
Three years after not even fielding a team, and with just two wins over the two previous seasons, things are looking up for the Bulldogs. Thanks to a large senior class and a sophomore class that went undefeated in junior high last season, making the playoffs is a realistic pos- sibility.
The 2A-4 Conference coaches have even picked the Bulldogs to finish fourth in the nine-team conference.
“We are going to be a lot more competitive,” Hol- land said. “I thought we got better last year. We were ugly early, for sure. We were better at the end of the year. We could go out there and execute some of the schemes we were trying to do on both sides of the ball. They saw some of the kids that we have coming up.”
Decatur has 27 players out, that is 13 more than it ended with last season. At times last August, Hol- land would have just six or seven players at some practices.
The bigger numbers help.
“That’s an encouraging deal,” Holland said. “Lot of seniors, lot of sophomores. We have one junior in the whole bunch. I feel better going into the season than I did a year ago. It’s nice to have enough kids to actu- ally go through practice.”
It’s also nice to have some talent. Decatur also has good size.
Sophomore Vic- tor Urquidi (6-foot, 190 pounds) and his twin brother, Mario Urquidi (6- 3, 172), look more like ex- perienced upperclassmen. Victor Urquidi will play quarterback and lineback- er, and he had 31 tackles in two games with the varsity last year after the junior high season concluded. Mario Urquidi will lineup at receiver and safety.
“Victor is a very good runner and he is becom- ing a better passer all the time,” Holland said. “Very smart player. Mario can stand out here under the basket and dunk it. Pretty good sophomore.”
Hackett coach Eddie Ray said he expects the Bull- dogs to be much improved this season. “Decatur has a good group of sophomores com- ing up,” Ray said. “They have some really good athletes in that group that are going to be really good high school players. I know they gave Magazine fits last year after they moved those players up to the varsity.”
Evan Owens (5-9, 145) was the quarterback last season, but the senior has moved to slot receiver. Alan Castenada, another sopho- more, will be the tailback in the Bulldogs’ spread offense.
Avery Clay (6-3, 297) will anchor both the offensive and defensive lines. Clay has dropped almost 50 pounds since last season. Elijah McIver (6-1, 218) also has experience in the trenches.
“Avery moves better than he did a year ago,” Holland said. “He has worked hard. Last year, he played basket- ball and he had to run up and down the floor. And he got in the weight room.”
But none of the players enter the coach’s office without knocking.
Sports, Pages 9 on 08/29/2012