THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Odessa High School Athletics

As Joseph Chavez plants his fingers and gets down into his stance for another snap against the scout team out at the practice field, he’ll hear Matt Anastasio in one of his ears. “If the tackle goes this way, you’re going that way,” Odessa High’s defensive coordinator will boom out to the senior defensive end. Then, in his other ear, Chavez will hear another voice. “Step like this. Rip. Drive,” head coach Danny Servance will call out. They’ll run the play. Then they’ll run it again. Over and over, it seems — until Chavez is planting his fingers, looking up, and finding himself across from the opposing offense, under the lights on game day, trying to make a stop with his teammates in a big moment. There’s the snap. The tackle goes that way, so Chavez goes this way. He steps. He rips. He drives. And the rest of the Bronchos defense works in sync just the same — and the band strikes up, the punter comes on, and the defense goes to the sideline to celebrate making the play with Servance, Anastasio and the rest of the staff. “I wouldn’t want any other coaches,” Chavez said. Two games into the season, those coaches have led the Bronchos to two big wins, with the steady defense anchoring those efforts, pulling in five takeaways, forcing three turnovers on downs and holding opposing offenses to 262 yards a game. It starts out there on the practice field, as Chavez explained outside the locker room Wednesday, after another workout in preparation for Odessa High’s next challenge with visiting Lubbock Coronado, set for 7:30 tonight at Ratliff Stadium. “Going over that same play until we perfect it — it just gets us ready for Friday,” he said. With game plans by defensive-minded Servance, and Anastasio, who also serves as assistant head coach, the Bronchos have gotten themselves in the right spots to make the right plays on their way to a season-opening 28-24 win over Lubbock Monterey and a 28-21 win over Amarillo High last week. Now, the Bronchos are playing the kind of solid defense folks in football circles expected to see out of Odessa High after Servance and Anastasio brought their minds together on the west side of Odessa. When Servance was named Odessa High’s head coach back in January of 2016, bringing on Anastasio was one of his first moves — and part of the goal was to have the Bronchos playing stout defense like they are right now. “They’re some of the best coaches we could have,” junior Bronchos safety Parker Cherry said. “After a year having them, we really built that bond. We all trust them.” Anastasio stepped down as head coach at Class 5A’s Gregory-Portland to team back up with Servance. The two coached together at Permian in the mid-2000’s. Both were finalists for Odessa High’s head coaching job. Both say they’d have hired the other. They wanted to team up again, and now, at a given Bronchos practice, observers can find both Servance and ‘Coach A’ hammering through their game plan in tandem with the Odessa High defense, while still juggling other duties. “If I mess up, Coach A will get on to me, and then right when he’s done, I hear Coach Servance,” Chavez said with a laugh. “Here he comes, on the other ear, giving me another lesson on what Coach A just said. And vice versa. That’s the way it goes.” Having those minds working together for the Bronchos has been a big advantage, junior Odessa High linebacker Michael Gonzalez said. “I think they really put a lot of time into watching film, and breaking it down, making it simple for us to read,” Gonzalez said. “That makes our job easy — as the defensive line, the linebackers, the DBs, everyone. “We don’t have to read so much, it’s just, ‘Play.’ I think they do a great job about that.” Gonzalez leads the Bronchos with 19 tackles through two games. Fellow linebacker Tony Carrasco has 16, while safety Charles McClure has 13 and Chavez has 11. Chavez has pulled down two sacks, while his counterpart at defensive end, CJ Washington, has another three. Aaron Ochoa has two interceptions at corner. Cherry and Chris Nunez both have fumble recoveries, and it was Washington who picked up the game-winning fumble and scored against Lubbock Monterey. The Bronchos are finding themselves in the right spots to make big plays — and the players are the first to admit that their coaching has a whole lot to do with that. “We’re not the most athletic group out here, so we’ve got to be on top of our game,” Cherry admitted freely. After all, no one around seems to remember the last time Odessa High had the biggest team in its district, or the fastest. That’s the way it’s been for a while on the west side. But under Servance and Anastasio, the Bronchos defense is building toward another identity. “Technique is everything to us,” Chavez said. “We’re definitely not the biggest. We’re definitely not the fastest. But our technique, and our work ethic — we’re going to be hard to match with that.” With two great defensive minds leading the way, the Bronchos are trying to make up for any lack of athleticism with excellent preparation and excellent execution. “We have to play great technique,” Anastasio said. “We’re not going to be bigger than anybody. We may not be faster than everybody. But good angles on defense is a big thing. Leverage — staying lower than the opponent. Staying on the correct shoulder. “From secondary to D-line, the better technician always wins in football. We have to be great at that, from every step that we do, to every little angle that we read at — it all has to be the same.” The Bronchos admit they still have a long way left to go, but with safeties coach Chris Murry, corners coach Ammad Quigley and defensive line coach Jerod Couch, the Bronchos defense is on its way — with Servance and Anastasio leading the way. “It’s four eyes that have been on the defensive side of the ball, to be able to see rather than just two,” Anastasio said. “We have great assistant coaches in Coach Murry, Coach Quigley and Coach Couch on defense that also do one heck of a job. “Having both of us, me and Coach Servance there, who’ve done defense forever and ever and ever — it helps a lot.” That was the plan, and, for them, it’s been great to see it come together. Servance said the two talked during the application process, and they knew then, if Anastasio had been named head coach, Servance would’ve jumped on board as his coordinator. “It didn’t matter who got it. We were going to be together,” Servance said. “That’s why we came here together, to learn off each other,” Anastasio explained. “Both of us have ideas — to learn from each other and go on from there. “You never stop learning in life.” Now it’s working. “It’s a good feeling,” Servance said. “We know how hard we work, and we know how hard the kids work. “Any time you put hard work into something, you want to see it pay off, and so it’s good to see that paying off for us this year.” That includes that strive for perfection the Bronchos put in on the practice field — all made worth it on their way to 2-0. “I think this year’s group, they’ve really put to heart that they were going to do everything that we asked them to do, and now it’s paying off,” Anastasio said. “They’re seeing how it’s paying off. That’s the fun part about coaching. “When you get anywhere, the long work, the long summers, the long nights — it’s paying off for three hours on a Friday night. Coming here, there’s been some crying, there’s been some fun days, but the past couple games, it’s all been worth it.”

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Odessa High School Athletics

DILIGENT ODESSA HIGH DEFENSE FINDING FOOTING UNDER SERVANCE, ANASTASIO

JUSTIN LEE

Odessa American | 9/14/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Jacob Ford