THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Odessa High School Athletics

When Aaron Ochoa and the rest of the Odessa High football players stepped into the locker room Monday early morning, and strapped on their pads, laced up their cleats and slid on their helmets, all their gear fit just right. When the Bronchos took to the practice field behind the school, before class and before sunrise, and for the first time since November, those cleats dug right back into the turf and it seemed like they had never actually been away. And when they started to move through drills, it looked like the Bronchos were picking up right where they left off, without missing a beat. But as familiar as it all seemed, there was something different about Monday and Odessa High’s early morning start to spring practice. For a group of upperclassmen like Ochoa, it didn’t take until the sun rose over campus for them to realize they were being seen in a different light. “I have to be a leader,” Ochoa said. Yes, the seniors from last fall are gone, having played their last game as Bronchos — so Monday marked the first time that players from the class of 2018 were charged with stepping into that position. It starts with them this spring, as the Bronchos, second-year head coach Danny Servance and his Odessa High staff work to lay bricks and build a foundation for a successful season this fall. They’ll keep at it until the Red-White scrimmage concludes Odessa High’s spring workouts on May 20. “I’m just trying to be a little bit more of a voice, just let this team know my presence, know I’m here,” wide receiver and fellow rising senior Zay Brown said. “It’s a work in progress. I know we’re all going to fit into our positions.” Ochoa and Brown are two of the 20 or so juniors-turning-seniors who are looking to lead the Bronchos into the season this fall. “Leadership — that’s the thing that we want out of these guys,” Servance said, standing aside the field just after practice Monday morning, as his players hustled off to class. “We believe we’ve got the nucleus to have great leadership on our football team because of those junior guys. “A lot of those guys played last year. A lot of them were leaders even though they weren’t seniors last year. A lot of them played in leadership roles. So we look for those guys to kind of set the tempo for our football team.” Servance said he saw them do just that on the first day of spring ball. “Not letting anybody slack off, and just being on their butts at all times,” Ochoa said of what he and fellow team veterans tried to do Monday. “We have to know we can’t have what happened last year.” Otherwise, the Bronchos were just glad to get out to the practice field and start working toward the fall. “We’ve been ready to hit for a minute,” Brown said with a laugh. “I’ve been missing my brothers out here.” As far as Monday’s workout goes, Servance said he and his staff were mostly hoping to see crisp execution out of their players, as they stepped back onto the practice field for the first time in months. The physical components of the game will come, he said. If there’s rust, it’ll be knocked off as practices continue. But the foundation is first built between the ears — and in applying study from the offseason off the practice field. “We want to see great execution,” the Bronchos head coach said. “We definitely want to see the mental aspect of it, because all through offseason, we’ve tried to work on the psyche and do a good job of being, really, attentive about doing the right things and learning, so that we would be ready for spring ball. So that’s what we’re excited about.” Brown and the rest rising seniors are looking for that, too. “The discipline part, we did alright,” Brown said of Monday’s workout. “But it’s the first practice. We’re working back into it.” Yes, it’s a start. And for the Bronchos, the hope is that it’s the start of something big. “It is good to be back out here — second year, second spring,” Servance said. “We’re excited. It’s good to be back out, and good to get going, and see if we can take some strides forward from where we were last year.”

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Odessa High School Athletics

LEADERS STEPPING FORWARD AT SPRING PRACTICE

JUSTINE JLEE

OA Online | 4/24/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Sterkel