Scots hope to keep winning in post-Hoffman era

SHORELINE — It was like old times. Sort of.

On the first day of Shorecrest’s spring football practice June 5, the one player who has epitomized the team in recent years was there, shaking hands, chatting it up with his friends on the team.

But this fall, the guys who will suit up in green and gold will write a new chapter of history and find a new leader.

As Jesse Hoffman ran wind sprints, alone on the sidelines, testing out his legs, the Scots divided into linemen, linebackers and defensive backs and ran through their first set of drills.

Hoffman, a graduating senior, is preparing to play in the 3A/4A East-West All-Star Game July 1. It’s the next step before he gets ready for the next stage of his life as a freshman on a full-ride football scholarship to Eastern Washington University.

Hoffman, who rewrote the Shorecrest record book with entries for the most yards in season, most touchdowns in season, most yards in game, most touchdowns in a game, is moving on. And so are the Scots.

But while the Hoffman era is over at Shorecrest, the bar has been raised in large part because of him.

Coming off a 10-2 season and their first Western Conference South Division championship and state playoff appearance since 1994, the Shorecrest players are hungry to get the job done again.

If anything, Hoffman’s trademark swagger gave the underclassmen something to model and that confidence could carry over to the 2006 season.

Plus it doesn’t hurt to have guys like bulldog-tough senior fullback/linebacker Grady Small back along with senior speedster Kevin Ramos, one of the state’s top wide receivers.

Because of last season’s success, Small said guys have been pumped up for weeks, asking about spring practice and weight room workouts. About 60 players turned out for the first day of spring workouts June 5.

The Shorecrest offense should continue to be potent but replacing Hoffman’s 2,222 rushing yards and 37 touchdowns won’t be an easy task.

“We’re not going to reinvent the wheel,” head coach Mike Wollan said. “(But) we’re certainly going to throw in some new wrinkles.”

That likely means spreading the offense out a bit more and possibly passing more to Ramos and receiver Riley Reynolds, who was suspended for most of last season.

“We certainly need to get more balance offensively and certainly with the guys we have I think we can do that,” Wollan said.

“I’m a proponent of making an offense fit your personnel,” he said. “We’ll play around with some things in the spring.”

Small, Ramos and junior Benny Olsen will make up the ground attack.

“We have a lot of speed,” said Ramos, who has attracted interest from Washington, Idaho and Eastern Washington.

On defense, the Scots need to get better and Wollan said he’s dedicated more practice time to defense this spring.

“I think we learned a lot last year as we got into the playoffs that teams that end up at the end of the year play defense. And they do it well,” he said.

The Scots graduated much of their offensive and defensive lines but there’s some experience coming back and Wollan said he expects the defensive line to be as good if not better than last year.

Other key returnees include, linemen Daniel Trierweiler and Evan Burns, linebackers Tanner Bean and Duncan Anderson, receiver/defensive back Ian Wright, tight end/defensive end Darren Sharpe, defensive back/kicker Elliot Richards and defensive end/tight end Marek Domanski. All the above are seniors except Domanski.

Quarterback is the Scots biggest question mark. Pierce Rankin, the shortstop on the baseball team, who played his freshman and sophomore years but not last year, turned out the first day of spring drills and could be the guy.

Spring practice runs for three weeks and then the Scots go to Western Washington University for a team camp June 25-29. Even with a lot of changes expected, there’s a lot of optimism in the Scots camp.

“Even though we lost a lot of players coming into the season we feel that we have enough returning talent and incoming talent that we should be able to get a lot done,” Small said.