The Shadow Ridge Men’s Football Team finished their season after a tough loss in the semifinals. Despite their best efforts, the team fell short of reaching the championship game.
Assistant Coach Buteyn says, “The team won our first playoff game 42-20 vs Sierra Vista but it was closer than we would have liked. We made a lot of mistakes that we plan to correct and learn from this week. But having to play Sierra Vista twice in back to back weeks definitely made it tough and we were happy to get the win in commanding fashion still.”
The biggest growth has come from others’ offense adapting to Shadow’s strengths of having an Oline who blows other teams off the ball and Shadow’s defenses ability to force turnovers as of late and getting Shadow’s offense back to the ball.
“Big keys to our team’s success has been the reliability of our all seniors offensive line who we have leaned on heavily to put up points. On the defensive side of the ball the emergence of young players like sophomores Colton Richter, Isaiah Ruiz and Mujahid Gilliard have been a big key to our defense improving every week to help us win games as well as veteran leadership from guys like Ula Cox and Jacob Dosch,” says Buteyn.
Coach Buteyn has been fortunate to make the playoffs in all 8 seasons of his coaching career and each year is special that comes with new and different challenges, but seeing teams pull together for one common goal is always the best thing to witness and makes him want to work even harder to put kids in the best possible situations and positions to be successful.
Buteyn says, “The expectation is always to be playing in the state title game either at Allegiant or wherever every season, we did it back to back in 21’ and 22’. In 23’ we fell one game short of that goal and that doesn’t change for this season. We have a gauntlet to go through in the playoffs as we would have to beat Legacy and Faith, the two teams that beat us in season, to make it back to the state title game. But nonetheless that is the goal and we have the team to pull it off.”
Shadow Ridge believes that winning at the end of the day is always the main goal of the team but it should never come before students personal and academic success off the field.
“Coaching above all else is about building relationships with your players, if your players know you genuinely care about them they will run through a wall for you! Our team definitely plays for one another and I believe that philosophy holds true as we are not just a team but a family,” says Buteyn
If he has to motivate a kid for playoffs then most likely they probably don’t have the internal drive to be a great player. As Buteyn is a coach, he would still do everything in his power to get them to perform their best but if a player can’t get motivated for playoffs then most likely they don’t internally want it bad enough.
