Developing depth

Schalick gives bulk of live-ball time in Friday’s scrimmage to underclassmen as the Cougars eye future while positioning themselves for this year’s run

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

BUENA – Mike Wilson already knows what his veteran starters can do – and he has a lot of them to track. He saw their work first-hand last year as the junior-laden bunch led Schalick to historic program heights that fuel even higher expectations for the season ahead.

So as the Cougars went through their game scrimmage in the run-up to next week’s Battle at the Beach season opener Friday at Buena, the coach’s focus turned to the equally deep group in the next two classes for what they’re anticipating as a long run.

That’s the reason Reggie Allen played only five snaps on offense and none on defense, Levi Feeney-Childers didn’t play much on offense and none on defense, the second defensive line played the whole time and senior quarterback Kenai Simmons didn’t play at all.

“We played a lot of 2s, a lot of backups, a lot of rotators,” Wilson said. “We put a lot of sophomores in positions.”

The resting of Simmons opened the door for a full live-ball look at sophomore backup Ayden Jenkins. Early in the exercise Jenkins looked like a sophomore, fumbling twice in his first six snaps and losing one of them. But after that, he looked like the player the Cougars can use to give Simmons a break on offense to open up his value as the team’s best defender.

After the initial miscues, Jenkins completed four of five passes for 153 yards – 45, 51, 20, 37 — and a touchdown and ran 15 yards for another score.  Junior Sherrod Jones, who had three varsity carries last year, rushed for 63 yards and a touchdown on two carries. The Cougars won the half of live-ball action 21-7.

“We wanted to play the sophomore quarterback,” Wilson said explaining the call to sideline Simmons. “We don’t want Gloucester Catholic last year again. We need a quarterback who can run the offense Kenai runs. As you saw today, Ayden did a nice job, but he’s a sophomore, one play’s really nice, the next play looks like a sophomore. 

“We know Kenai can play. Kenai does not have to prove to me he can play the game. He has had 30 varsity games before his senior year.”

The Gloucester Catholic situation to which Wilson alluded is a reference to last year’s Homecoming Game in which Matthew LaMazza played the rest of the game after Simmons hurt his non-throwing shoulder in the first minute of the second quarter. LaMazza did an admirable job directing the Cougars to a 42-20 victory that completed their undefeated regular season, and if he were a baseball relief pitcher would have been credited with the win, but the offense was reduced to its most basic operation.

“I heard this from a coach from Arkansas and he said you never want a senior with sophomore experience and that’s what we’re trying to avoid this year,” Wilson said. “We graduate a great senior class at the end of the year, we do not need juniors and seniors next year with no experience, so we’re trying to avoid that with the preseason

“We’ve got some talented kids, but you need game-feel experience (and) you can’t replicate the game overnight. That was kind of the goal today. That’s why Ayden was playing quarterback. I’d rather him make mistakes today than if he has to play in a game.”

The Cougars literally snuck up on people last season, their 11-1 record and run to the Central Jersey Group I title game a culmination in a four-year reclamation project by Wilson and his staff. 

But as you’d expect, it wasn’t enough for the Cougars. This year is all about unfinished business and while there may have been some questions about the veracity of the Cougars’ success, there’s a growing sense in the region it’ll be the Cougars and Glassboro meeting for South Jersey’s spot in the Group I state championship game.

“We have a lot of seniors,” Simmons said. “It means a lot (to them) and I don’t think they’re ready to go down soon at all in this last run.”

One only had to look at the Cougars’ social media page a couple weeks ago to see how they’ve set themselves up from some long-term success. Of course, they have a huge senior class (18 players), but they have just as many in their current junior and sophomore classes who will figure prominently in this year’s plans.

Some Group I programs would be lucky to have half as many players in those three classes.

“Everybody’s focused on 2024 and so am I, but being the head coach I’m looking at 2025,” Wilson said. “We have a lot of ‘isms’ on our coaching staff. One big thing we do for development is we don’t let a senior back up a senior. That’s why we’re trying to give the kids the opportunities to play.

“One thing I learned when I was at Oakcrest and Mainland, develop as many as 1½ times player as you can. That’s kind of the goal. Limit two-way players, create one-way players and your really good kids play 1½ ways. When you do that, you develop your kids for the future and, No. 2, you wear teams out. It accomplishes your short term, your near term and your long-term goals because we want to be consistent, in the mix every year. If you put all your eggs in one basket and you only play 12 kids, you see those booms and those busts.”

Cover photo: Schalick backup quarterback Ayden Jenkins (11) scores a touchdown in Friday scrimmage against Buena.