EDMONDS
This month marked a new chapter for the Edmonds-Woodway football team.
Graduation claimed many of the players responsible for last year’s state semifinal playoff run, including running back/linebacker Josh Heard, wide receiver/defensive back Eric Greenwood and tight end/defensive lineman Casey Hamlett.
“It’s a huge blow because those are three amazing players,” senior-to-be quarterback Kyle McCartney said.
Even though a total of 10 seniors who earned all-Western Conference South Division honors are gone, Edmonds-Woodway is far from being barren in terms of returning talent.
Not with McCartney, a first-team, all-league quarterback/defensive back, and second-team, all-league junior running back Tony Heard back in the fold. Throw in senior wide receiver Antoinne Wafer and the Warriors definitely won’t be getting much sympathy from any of their divisional opponents on their losses.
“It’s not like we have a totally new varsity team,” Heard said. “We know what to do out there.”
Edmonds-Woodway spent the past two weeks getting reacquainted at its annual spring football practices at the high school.
The first week was a little slow as players were figuring out their new assignments but by the end of the second week, the Warriors were picking up the pace, McCartney said.
“We’ve got all kind of guys that know what it takes to perform well on Friday nights and have been putting in the work,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have some guys that can step up and fill those shoes.”
Edmonds-Woodway has about five or six players on each side of the ball who’ve played a significant amount of time last year, though not all started, McCartney added.
Warriors head coach John Gradwohl expects to have the players to be able to compete in the division.
“We have some key linemen we feel pretty good about,” Gradwohl said. “Obviously, we don’t have a 6-6 receiver (Greenwood). … We have a few more guys to chose from on the O-line. We may be a little less deep in speciality players.”
Three of those key returning linemen are Zack Greenberg, Chris Routen and Nic Arnold.
Edmonds-Woodway’s success in the fall is going to boil down to the team’s attitude and how the players come together, Gradwohl said.
Last year’s players “had a great team attitude,” he said. “You had all that talent. They really just were very unselfish. They put the team first and that’s what it’s all about.”
Edmonds-Woodway’s advanced to the Class 4A state semifinals before Bothell ended the Warriors’ run.
The loss still stings for the returners.
“We just felt like we could have proven ourselves more,” McCartney said. “We feel like we need to do that — get back there this year.”
Added Heard, “We feel like we need to do better than last year. That’s just the goal for us. It’ll be hard without all that talent we had last year, but we can do it.”
Edmonds-Woodway ran a balanced offense and that figures to be the same this season. One of Gradwohl’s top priorities is to find another receiver to go with Wafer.
The Warriors don’t lack any confidence heading into the summer.
“If we step up and do our jobs … we can replace our seniors from last year and get better at what we’re doing,” Wafer said.
This year’s team also needs to learn from the example set by the seniors.
“The thing we learned the most from the seniors last year was probably attitude and what’s a team is actually about,” Wafer said.
“It’s a team game,” Heard added. “You have to rely on everyone.”
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