Photo by Ralph Freso for the Arizona Daily Star

CDO, Salpointe Catholic ready for inexplicable rematch in football playoffs

Tucson.com
Of all the iconic lines from the legendary sitcom “Friends,” only one sums up the strange postseason pigskin plot unfolding between Salpointe Catholic and Canyon del Oro.

“They don’t know that we know they know we know,” Lisa Kudrow said as Phoebe Buffay, and yeah, that’s just about what Dennis Bene and Dusty Peace are thinking right now.

Of all the cockamamie ideas that the Arizona Interscholastic Association has foisted upon local high school football, perhaps none is zanier than pitting the Lancers and Dorados against each other for the second straight week.
 
But here we are: Salpointe is seeded fourth in Class 4A and CDO is seeded 13th, a week after the 8-2 Lancers came from behind to beat the 6-4 Dorados 31-14 to close the regular season.

Round 2, Friday night at Salpointe. Let the chess match commence.

“The first thing I told my coaches when we walked in Saturday was if I start going back and forth on things, just slap me around,” Peace said. “There’s no doubt you play that game with yourself. The reality is we just have to execute better.”

Funny thing: Bene is telling his team the exact same thing.

A few years back, he got fancy, switching up Salpointe’s style for a semifinal showdown with Peoria Centennial. The 12-1 Lancers lost, and the next year, Bene resolved to stay steady, to focus only on what his own team needed to do, and they went undefeated en route to a state title.

This week, with a rematch with CDO in the offing, the message was the same.

In short: Stick to what brung ya here.

“Ultimately, we have to get back to this is what we do, and we have to continue to execute what we do,” Bene said. “When you start to try to change what you do for you opponent, the odds start working against you. I learned that the hard way.”

If anything, there was less tinkering than usual among the two rivals.

The tedious installation that typically consumes most of Monday and Tuesday was replaced by technique and positioning work.

Normally that film breakdown is some of the most tedious time a high school football player spends preparing for an opponent. They have to learn all new numbers, names, positions, schemes, plays, route diagrams, “Hey, who’s that kid with the long hair?”

“It’s been easier on everybody,” CDO offensive/defensive lineman Jonas Leader said. “We know what routes they run, the physical aspect of everything. We’ve had to work on things we didn’t do well, but we did it different this week. We split up all our positions — the ends went with one group, the tackles with another — and we had to perfect a craft.”

It wasn’t just easier on the players. This go-round, the Lancers and Dorados know the Dorados and Lancers, and, well, vice versa.
 
“Our approach every week with a new opponent is that you have to watch all this film and digest all they’re doing, and then develop a game plan,” Bene said.

“Because we’d just played CDO, we spent a lot more time watching our film, and really getting into detail what we did well and didn’t — the things that worked and why, the things that didn’t work and why.”

This is a luxury afforded few teams, even if Bene was “really surprised” when he learned about his first-round opponent.

“Really surprised” is also a good way to describe the Lancers last Friday against the Dorados.

CDO jumped to a 14-0 lead and had Salpointe reeling before the Lancers busted out a big punt return and flipped the script, scoring the final 31 points.

“Listen, CDO really got after us in the first quarter,” Bene said. “That’s what I told the kids — you were fortunate you won, because you were outplayed the beginning of that game. Regardless of the score, our kids have great respect for CDO because they earned it on Friday.”

Respect only goes so far.

The Dorados have something else they’re working on.

“We definitely have some redemption on our minds,” Leader said. “There’s a different hunger than last week. We felt like we let it slip away.” http://tinyurl.com/zrt5k4k
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Salpointe Catholic High School

1545 E. Copper St.,
Tucson, AZ 85719
(520) 327-6581
Attendance: (520) 327-1990
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