Lakeland Football Ready To Bounce Back

The young Lakeland Hornets football squad finished 3-5 last year after making it to the Section 1 Class A semifinals the season before. But athletes and coaches are now making sure they can be stronger and better prepared for this season. 

The team is looking to make sure it is in position to reach the postseason again as it started its weight-room program back in the first week of December.

“What we did is we put them on a program to get them faster and stronger,” Lakeland coach Rob Cappelli said. “They got tested on bench, clean and dead lift every three weeks. We did that until the spring.”

During the spring, Lakeland had what Cappelli calls his “corp group” of 12 altheles, because most of the Hornets are either playing lacrosse for coach Jim Lindsay or baseball for Dennis Robinson.

“I am a big believer in lacrosse and baseball, I have a good situation with coach Lindsay and coach Robinson,” Cappelli said. “We each support each other’s teams. When their seasons are in session I don’t interfere with their players who play football and during football, they don’t interfere with my players.”

There are three weeks when the weight-lifting program during the summer does not run and that’s when the Hornets hold their three full-contact camps. They were four days a week, three hours a day.

“Those camps are a huge help because it’s like preseason for doubles (double sessions),” all-league senior running back Dan Eremita said. “It’s like we are already in the preseason.”

The first camp in June is a lot of skill work where the Hornets work on quarterback-center exchange, blocking progression, tackling progression and then they implement some of the base packages for their offense and defense.

The second one involves working on game-situations like offensive goal-line, defensive goal-line, long-down back against the wall and the two-minute drill. The third camp Cappelli said is for cutting down on the call sheet to see which plays work and which don’t.

The two athletes, who will be getting their names called plenty this fall, are Eremita and Nick Mariani.

“They are hard-charging, big backs for us,” Cappelli said. “We are lucky to have two talented senior backs returning in them. They were both big for us last year and it’s nice to have them back this year. They are both returning starters.”

Their leading blocker will be junior left tackle Connor O’Neill. O’Neill joins Eremita and Mariani as the Hornets top offensive players.

Also playing key roles on offense are sophomore quarterback Brian Prunty, senior running back Mike Kaplan and senior split end Tony LaGuerre. Defensively the Hornets will be led by senior nose guard Dan Carlucci, junior linebacker Anthony Kaplan, and line-backing brothers, senior Martin and junior Benny Dedvukaj. Playing a key role on both sides of the ball is senior guard/linebacker Vincent Caputo.

“Last year our players were really young but they got a lot of experience,” Cappelli said. “This year we’ll see if we can just improve upon it and get better. Last year was a tough season after going to the semifinals in ’09 but with this group’s work ethic, I am confident we will bounce back.”

Lakeland's season opens with a game against state Class A finalist Harrison on Sept. 9. at 7 p.m.