HARLINGEN — The 2017 high school football season might still be three months away, however Harlingen South head coach Brian Ricci and staff are already looking ahead to the new season.
On Thursday afternoon, the Hawks concluded spring football by going live on the final day of practice. South will be looking to improve on last season’s 5-5 overall finish.
In District 32-6A action, South finished 2-5 last season, defeating only Brownsville Rivera and Los Fresnos. Nevertheless, the moral was high as Ricci and company left the field.
“I feel like we are way ahead of where we were at this time last year,” said Ricci. “Obviously this is the second year of our new system so a lot of the returning kids were going through a refresher and then we get to add new stuff. I’m happy with that and I know I have a lot of kids that were excited about playing and you can see be the numbers because we got a lot of kids playing and that’s important.”
Despite a few mistakes, Ricci remained positive about what he saw over the past three weeks.
“I was impressed by both of our lines,” he said. “On our D-line we have a couple of returners coming back so I felt they are going to be pretty solid, but on our O-line we have some juniors that really impressed me this spring, so I would say that going into the summer I’m happy with the D-line and O-line play.”
Harlingen South is set to return four starters offensively and five starters on defensive.
The Hawks open with a scrimmage against McAllen High on Aug. 26 before opening the season at PSJA High on Sept. 1.
