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Cats scratch 7-on-7 state tourney berth
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@acnpapers.com
The summer is still relatively young, but Plano Senior can already check off one box on its to-do list for 7-on-7 football.
Taking the field at Mesquite Memorial Stadium, the Wildcats diced through pool play for the second consecutive state qualifier and made good on their bid for a return to the Division I 7-on-7 State Tournament in ousting Dallas Skyline, 40-19, in the semifinals on Saturday.
“They did well and won all four games,” said Jaydon McCullough, Plano head coach. “They played well and acted right. We’re very pleased with this just being our second [state qualifying tournament], although we’re still not where we need to be.”
“You want to see how these kids handle adversity and success,” McCullough said. “To me, successful is never final and failure is never fatal. It’s a process and good teams understand that; they never get too high and they never get too low. They have a tremendous competitive spirit.”
The likes of now-seniors Clayton Parlin, Steele Hoetger and junior Kevin Merrill notched touchdowns along the way. That output, coupled with timely goal line defensive work, allowed Plano to punch its ticket to the mid-July summer showcase – set to hold forth on July 9-10 from Texas A&M University – for the sixth straight season.
With the Wildcats 7-on-7 squad headed by Mike Sigman, McCullough and his staff have enjoyed a view of the squad’s progress from the stands. Watching from afar, McCullough stressed using these games as a means of scouting not just athletic ability, but competitive spirit and on-field leadership.
“It’s really more about characteristics as far as what we’re looking for,” he said. “You either have talent or not, but the way you play will reveal what kind of character you have and that’s what we’re trying to mold.”
The ingredients were clicking on all cylinders during pool play, as the Wildcats scored commanding decisions over Garland (54-13), Mesquite Poteet (55-32) and Wylie East (45-24).
All that being said, the staff’s process of molding character over the offseason includes the notion of using idioms like a qualifying bid as motivation and never resting on your laurels.
“We don’t want our kids to lose perspective of where they are,” McCullough said. “I just don’t want this to inflate where they’re at and get them complacent. We’re excited that they’ve qualified and we want them to use something like this to carry over into the fall.”
With one more qualifier left on the docket, a June 19 fray at an SQT from SMU, the Wildcats will also have their time occupied not only by the team’s annual strength and conditioning programs, but by a weekly stint in the Collin County 7-on-7 summer league as building blocks to the eventual fall campaign.
“You hear all the time that championships are won in the offseason,” McCullough said. “They’ve got to understand that time is their greatest commodity and with every second that ticks off, we’re getting closer to two-a-days and one step closer to our first game against (Garland) Lakeview Centennial.”
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