New Oakville-North River head football coach Camren Bowes is sticking true to his promise to bring a family culture to the Acorns program.
The coaching staff, led by Bowes, his brother Chase and father Hal, is not only focusing on establishing the X’s and O’s ahead of the Acorns’ Week 1 contest at Ocosta, but they’re locking in on team camaraderie and chemistry.
In terms of the X’s and O’s, however, the Acorns are looking like they’ll be an improved team from a 5-4 campaign last fall, even with a grueling schedule.
“We’re not shying away from wanting to face some good competition, and we’re going to embrace that opportunity and kick some ass,” Camren Bowes said. “That’s my goal.”
Here are three takeaways from ONR’s Wednesday practice at the Oakville High School baseball field.
Team camaraderie
The coaching staff’s efforts to bring teammates closer has had a palpable impact on the players, as no drill went by without teammates encouraging one another. Communication on both sides of the ball came naturally, especially for veterans like quarterback Gio Rodas and running back/linebacker Ben Kimbrel.
It started in the summer, with Bowes and the coaching staff bringing players together through workouts in the summer. Bowes has even emphasized the way players clap out of a huddle, spending 35 minutes on the first day on that aspect alone.
“We’ve been hitting the weight room all summer and doing fun activities and sprints and getting quicker. We also had fun competitions,” Bowes said. “Recently, we started our Acorn Olympics, where we get into different groups and compete against each other. We had a water balloon toss, a human knot challenge and even had a whipped cream eating contest.”
Running backs are bruisers
The Acorns will run the football, and they will run the football a lot and effectively. Senior Lewis Koser was a standout during Wednesday’s padded practice, bulldozing defensive linemen on multiple occasions and drawing a reaction from his players and coaches.
After one bruising run with a pop that could’ve been heard from North River, Bowes leaned over to his coaches and said, “Lewis is gonna be an animal.”
Kimbrel will be another strong contributor in the run game, along with Rodas, who Bowes described as a “Swiss Army Knife.”
High praise for coaching staff
Seniors like Rodas and Kimbrel have been around the program since their eighth grade year. They weren’t shy about the difference the new coaching staff has made in the first two weeks of practice.
“Practices are way more structured and just more disciplined. I think we’re learning way more with drills and learning the game more,” Kimbrel said. “The last few years that I’ve played, when we win a game, it’s three people, not all 16 people that we have on the sidelines. I have high hopes for everybody, even our freshmen and eighth graders.
“This is a brotherhood. There’s no ‘I’ in team,” Rodas added. “We’ve got to do it all together. We weren’t structured last year. We’ve got new coaches that are from bigger schools and they know what they’re doing.”
ONR kicks off its season on the road against Ocosta on Friday, Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.
