FRONT ROYAL — Skyline’s football team was able to kick off its preseason camp the way head coach Heath Gilbert intended on Thursday, a nice return to normalcy for the Hawks after last season’s unique campaign played during a pandemic.
In a typical year, Skyline’s initial days of practice, which take place before teachers report to work for the upcoming school year, include two on-field sessions each day paired with time spent in the meeting room to study and discuss in detail the things the Hawks will perform on the practice field. Last season’s structure — a condensed season of six regular-season games that took place not in the typical fall time slot but from February to April — prohibited Skyline from following that preseason formula.
A return to a regular schedule, which for Virginia High School League members began on Thursday with the first day of practice, was “definitely a good start” for Skyline, Gilbert said after his team’s first practice session of the new season.
“It was fun to kind of have camp like it’s supposed to be (with) the two-a-days, to have the time in the meeting room with the kids before we go on the field to show them what we want to do,” said Gilbert, who noted that the Hawks will have seven such practice days before teachers report to work. “We videotape our main concepts over the summer through those summer practices, then we get to draw it on the board and we get to watch it on film, they get to see it in their playbooks, so we’ve got three forms of learning what we’re supposed to do going on at one time and I think that’s super, super important. Last year we were pretty lucky to get away with (not having) that because we had such a veteran team. This year we need this time, so it’s big for us.”
No longer a veteran-laden team, Skyline lost 15 seniors from the 2021 spring squad that went 5-2, won the Class 3 Northwestern District title and earned a spot in the Region 3B semifinals, including six of the seven Hawks who were voted first or second team all-region.
Gilbert said that on Thursday, Skyline’s coaching staff asked for a show of hands from players who started a game for the Hawks last spring.
“Five guys put their hands up,” Gilbert said, adding that “we have a lot of opportunities for kids to show what they can do.”
That group of five players did not include senior quarterback Blake Appleton, who started as a sophomore in 2019 but missed last year after tearing his ACL. Appleton is back and will retake the reins of the Hawks’ offense this season, a boost for a unit that lost most of its statistical production from just a few months ago.
Gilbert said that while fatigue during Thursday afternoon’s defensive session revealed some players who didn’t participate in the summer program like they should have, Skyline’s offensive execution on Thursday morning was “as good as it’s ever been.”
“They looked sharp. We had very few busts, and having Blake back, he’s sharp in what he’s doing and putting the ball where it needs to be. The ball hardly hit the ground,” Gilbert said. “It was a good first day.”
Appleton and fellow senior Ethan Caperton agreed, and Appleton was likely a little happier than most to find a sense of familiarity this week after all of the craziness of last year.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a team, just putting a helmet, pads and cleats on, just doing normal things that I haven’t been able to do in quite a long time,” Appleton said. “Glad to be back out here doing what I love.”
The leadership of Skyline’s seniors and others with varsity playing experience, Appleton noted, will be “more important than anything else” as the Hawks turn to some younger players to fill the gaps left by graduation losses.
“We’ve just got to take all these young guys under our wing and show them the right way to do things and just be there for them. If they’ve got any questions, we’ve got to help them. Just be a team and I think we can accomplish a lot,” Appleton said. “You’ve got a lot of new faces, a lot of guys don’t know what they’re doing or what to expect, so you’ve got to help them along the way. Especially if we want to be successful, we need everybody on the same page.”
The Hawks are hoping that the short turnaround between seasons — just over three months this year as opposed to the traditional eight months — will aid the growth of those young players. Gilbert said Skyline’s junior varsity team competed last spring under the mantra that the season was their version of spring ball to prepare themselves for the varsity level, though he acknowledged that the offseason participation could’ve been better between seasons.
“I feel like everything should be clicking more because we didn’t have that space to lose all that we were learning, so everything is just like staying in our heads. We should be good by week one,” said Caperton, who filled in for Appleton at quarterback in the spring and now gets to return to receiver and, along with sophomore Aidan Vaught, will try to make up for some of the offensive production lost through graduation.
Caperton added that the Hawks are pushed by the fact that they’re the defending district champs.
“It motivates you to do the same thing,” he said. “It’s harder because we lost so many people from last year, but it just makes you more hungry to do it again, especially it being your senior year.”
