It’s like Christmas in July for Princeton coach

PRINCETON – It may have been in the middle of the summer, but Ryan Pearson was like the kid by the Christmas tree waiting to open his presents before the start of Monday night’s 7-on-7 competition at the Little Siberia practice field.

The Tigers invited neighboring Bureau Valley, a Three Rivers Conference East Division rival, and Annawan-Wethersfield, to get the summer season kick started with a 7-on-7 and the PHS coach was raring to go.

This like Christmas in July for me”

—  Ryan Pearson

“This is like Christmas in July for me,” Pearson said. “The biggest thing, No. 1, we want to see our kids compete. This is a chance for us, Bureau Valley, Annawan-Wethersfield to get an opportunity to get live reps for the first time for all of us against somebody else. It’s really just an opportunity for our kids to learn. We’re going to use it to hopefully build off it each and every time.

“Hopefully, everybody leaves today feeling more confident with what their assignments are, the coaches are a little more confident seeing what our kids can do so we can put them in the right positions to be successful.”

BV coach Mat Pistole said it’s seemed like an exceptionally long offseason after having such a short turnaround between the spring and falls seasons in 2021 coming off COVID-19.

“Seems like we played in the spring (2021) and then played in the fall. It just seems like the offseason was incredibly long and we’re really eager to get going again for sure,” he said.

The Storm coach said the summer is the time to build for the fall.

“It’s one of the first organized things we’ve done for this summer. I’m just looking to for the kids to start building a little camaraderie with each other and just really introduce the base concepts to what we want to do,” he said. “I don’t have any expectations. We’re going to go out here and give it a whirl. We’ve got a lot of inexperience in the backfield. It’s going to be trial by fire tonight.”

One of the kids under fire is sophomore Bryce Helms, who is being groomed to be the Storm’s quarterback this fall, a position he will be playing for the first time.

“We made the decision this spring to move Bryce to quarterback and we feel pretty good about that and he’s excited. We’ll have three years with him, too,” Pistole said.

Senior Isaac Attig will also see some reps at quarterback, Pistole said.

While the Storm quarterback position comes in unproven, there’s no question about the talent the Tigers have behind center. PHS senior Teegan Davis is a reigning BCR Player of the Year and unanimous all-conference and one of the top talents in the state.

“Yeah, I think ours is penciled in,” Pearson said with a laugh. “It’s good feeling.”

But there are some newcomers in the Tigers’ camp.

“We’ve got some new kids that have never played before. This is the first opportunity for them to get some live reps. Great opportunity for us to see what they can do,” Pearson said.

How a 7-on-7 works

As its name implies, each team lines up with seven players on the field in what is essentially an all passing game, Pistole explained, with linebackers and defensive backs taking on the quarterbacks, running backs and receivers.

“It’s really where you work on defensively the communication in the secondary and understanding your coverages and your drops and where to be and seeing different routes,” Pistole said. “And then offensively, it’s just more about timing and teaching your quarterback. It’s very hard to do it in practice. It’s much easier to do it here and introduce a lot of the pass plays and see the reads and see different defenses when it’s difficult to do in the season.

“It’s fun. The kids enjoy it and get to put the helmets on and run around before you actually can. So that’s always fun, too.”