FIELDER’S CHOICE: And the Coach of the Year is …

Awards week continues for me.

Try to contain your excitement.

I handed out my All-Name Team Sunday night. Today, I turn my attention to the Coach of the Year.

Just a reminder of the schedule for the rest of the week:
Tuesday night — Special Teams MVP
Wednesday night — Defensive MVP
Thursday night — Offensive MVP

I’d give out a best prognosticator award, but it would go to me and I don’t want to look that self-absorbed.

Coach of the Year

The candidates: Jeff Cahill, Basic; Preston Goroff, Del Sol; Gary Maki, Durango; Dave Snyder, Legacy

You might be able to make a case for Tony Sanchez at Bishop Gorman, but he had talented oozing out of his ears the minute he walked in the door.

Hunkie Cooper at Canyon Springs wouldn’t be a terrible choice, either, but the Pioneers had quite a few returning starters.

Snyder led Legacy to its first league title and that included a 7-6 victory over Palo Unbeatable. The Longhorns lost one game all year — by one point.

 

Not bad for a team that didn’t have much success to draw on.

Maki took a team that had plummeted to near the bottom of its league (the only thing propping it up was Pahrump), and made it not just respectable, but good.

Even coming into the season, few gave Durango a chance to do much more than lose.

The Trailblazers were outscored by 238 points in 10 games last year. This season, they outscored teams by 107 points. That’d be a 345-point turnaround, which might explain how a team goes from 1-9 to 8-3 in one season.

Cahill led Basic to a berth in the Sunrise Region final where fans packed the Wolves’ side of the field to see something they hadn’t seen in a long time — Basic compete for a spot in the state final.

The Wolves began the season with only three returning starters on offense and four on defense and not much respect from those doing predictions, but they kept finding ways to win.

Basic’s two losses were by a total of three points and both were to Fielder’s Coach of the Year …

Del Sol’s Goroff.

Before the season, Goroff told one of the Review-Journal’s writers he had no returning starters back. He almost wasn’t kidding.

“It’s definitely going to be a work in progress. We’re basically starting from scratch,” Goroff said before the season.

Losing players to graduation and Palo Verde, the Dragons brought back one returning starter on offense — wide receiver Evan Weinstock, who caught 11 passes last year.

And all Del Sol did was improve from a 10-3 finish last year to 12-2 and a spot in the state final this year.

Del Sol beat Las Vegas and Silverado — the two favorites to win leagues in the Sunrise Region — during the regular season.

 

Coming from behind in the Sunrise final to win without top running back Dezerick Reed only helped show what a coaching genius Goroff is.