Marysville linebacker Cole Pombert goes through a drill Monday morning. The Monarchs went through their first day of preseason practices for the 2020 season. (Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
Marysville High School’s football team began preseason practices on Monday with an uncertainty in the air.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association permitted fall sports teams to begin practices this past weekend.
The big question mark remains as to how the 2020 season will play out in the midst of COVID-19.
Although Monarch gridders were allowed to begin practices on Saturday, head coach Brent Johnson decided to begin two-a-days on Monday.
“We didn’t want to practice twice on Saturday, take Sunday off and then resume on Monday,” he had earlier said.
The Monarch coach said that by starting on Monday, the team will maintain a sense of continuity throughout the week.
Johnson noted that preseason practices will serve as an extension of the team’s recent two-week camp session.
“We’re going to continue to build off our camp by putting in more of our offensive and defensive game plans,” he said. “We’re going to run things pretty much like we did in camp.”
Johnson said he was interested in seeing how the Monarchs would respond to camp, after having been in the pandemic lockdown for a number of months.
“The guys did a good job of working out during the lockdown and they went into camp ready to go,” he said. “They came in focused and that surprised me a little bit.
“Our freshman are really getting into it and our sophomores through seniors were ready to go,” said Johnson.
“The guys were really happy to be back.”
Johnson said he likes what he has seen as far as a leadership standpoint from seniors Ashton Schmutz (quarterback-safety), linemen Dom Catano, Mike Gossey and Colby Kerns and linebackers Lincoln Heard and Luke Harper.
The Monarchs worked out in helmets on Monday and continued that today.
“We’ll put on the shoulder pads starting Wednesday and hopefully by Saturday, we’ll be able to knock some heads together,” said Johnson.
The Monarch boss admitted it’s hard to say what type of impact the coronavirus will have on the 2020 season, now that Worthington Schools have canceled fall sports.
“I know Union County has been upgraded to the orange level for the virus, but Franklin County is still in the red,” he said. “Schools in Franklin County have halting everything and that’s really the hard part of all of this.
“No one knows what the season will look like,” said Johnson. “For right now, we just have to go full-steam ahead.”
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