LYNNWOOD – With several starters gone from the 2014 team and a new head coach, many would give the Meadowdale football team a pass if it were to have a down year in 2015.
The Mavericks would like those people to save their pity.
Matt Leonard, who is in his first season as Meadowdale head coach after coming over from Foster HIgh School, and his players fully expect to continue the success the team had under previous head coach Mike Don and the 13 years that came before that under Mark Stewart.
The Mavericks don’t plan on giving people a reason to feel sorry for them, but Leonard doesn’t mind making sure his kids know that not much is expected of them this season.
“I make sure to remind them,” Leonard said. “I’m a cork board guy. I’m a guy that is going to tell them what people are saying about them. I run into people in the community or at coaches meetings and things like that and they are like, ‘don’t worry if this is a down year, you graduated 18 guys.’ I go and tell them, ‘hey, just so you know people don’t think very highly of you this year.’ I don’t feel that way.”
Leonard said the seniors especially have a chip on their shoulder going into the season.
“I think they’ve been very motivated to go out there,” he said. “They don’t want to be the ones to let the program down. We’ve established a culture here of winning and success. We expect to win and we expect to win at a high level. They’ve definitely taken that in stride.”
Don’t expect the Mavericks’ second coaching change in the last three years to have any sort of negative impact. When Stewart, who is now the head coach at Mariner, left to take the head coaching job at Garfield High School prior to the 2013 season, Don answered the call by leading Meadowdale to the state playoffs in back-to-back seasons, including a state quarterfinal appearance in his first season.
“I’ve been really impressed with their ability to adapt to new things,” Leonard said. “We threw almost our entire offensive at them and we’re pretty complex, and they picked it up. I think it’s a testament to the fact that this is a good community with a good feeder program, a good middle school program with really strong academics, so they’re kids that are really able to adapt and pick things up.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
MEADOWDALE MAVERICKS
Head coach: Matt Leonard (1st season)
Key returners: Bailey Walsh, Sr., OL/DL; Tyler Ruby, Sr., LB; C.J. Lewis, Sr., OL/DL; Tyree Carson, Sr., RB/DB.
Coach’s quote: “Meadowdale has had a long string of success that dates back through two different coaches. We have kind of developed a winning attitude. Our kids feel like even though we graduated a lot of starters and a lot of talent over the last couple of years that we’re still Meadowdale and we’re still going to be tough. We still feel like we’re the team that people have to go through in the (Wesco) South. That’s our attitude and that’s how we’ve approached it that we kind of have something to prove to people that think that we’re down this year.”
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