Verot at ease playing closer to home
The Bishop Verot Vikings have momentum after posting back-to-back winning seasons. They’re also ready to become more of a factor on the area high school football scene.
The FHSAA reclassification did the Vikings a favor by placing them in the new District 3A-11 comprised of other Lee County schools – Mariner, North Fort Myers, Fort Myers, Riverdale and South Fort Myers.
The Vikings bid farewell to District 2A-5, which forced them to make some long road trips to the Tampa-St. Pete area in addition to hosting out-of-area teams.
“It’s going to be good for us,” said Verot coach Phil Dorn, who enters his fifth season. “As a school we’re going to be cutting down on travel and it will give us the opportunity to play teams close to home and encourage more local interest in our games.”
The flip side of that is the Vikings want to make sure they’re competitive against their new disrict rivals. They’ll begin to find out where they are tonight when they host Port Charlotte in a spring scrimmage.
The Vikings open their fall season Sept. 4 at Evangelical Christian and wrap it up by hosting Fort Myers in the regular-season finale Nov. 6. They host Mariner Oct. 9 and visit North Fort Myers Oct. 30.
“We’ve had a good spring of work,” Dorn said, “but we’ll find out where we’re at (Friday).”
The Vikings reached the playoffs in 2007 and finished 7-4. They got off to a 5-1 start last year, but dropped three of their last four to finish 6-4 and miss the playoffs.
They return several players, though, on both sides of the ball.
Sophomore Jake Kistel showed steady improvement in his first season as the Vikings’ starting quarterback and is expected to be farther along this year in their pro-style offense.
Senior running back Schon Thomas has led the Vikings in rushing each of the past two seasons. A deep group of returning pass catchers includes Chris James, Jeff Farrell, Jordan Diggs and Jamie Alvarez, and tight end Forrest Campbell.
Sam Biel and Mike Sementelli are among the key offensive line players returning.
The defense is led by Jon Alvarez, who moves from defensive line to middle linebacker, and cornerback Hugo Delapenha. Chris Crawford and Dan Krispinski also are back, bringing valuable experience to the defensive front.