By Brittany Bowyer
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PHOENIX — This year at Sandra Day O’Connor, the Eagles are looking to make history. The team enters this season with their sights set on breaking through barriers and returning the the Open division playoffs for a second time.

O’Connor believes it has all the pieces it needs to get to the next step, but it will come down to the grit and mental toughness on the field each week.

“The biggest thing we’re trying to do is get back to the Open,” Head Coach Ben Kullos said. “We want to get back to being an open team here. It happened once in the school’s history, and we want to get back to that.”

Kullos said the Eagles have never won two playoff games in the same year, and they want to be the first squad to do that.

“Our boys are pretty motivated,” Kullos said.

Offensively, the Eagles return most of their core. Led by senior quarterback Brodie Moore, the offense is expected to be explosive this year as they return the entire receiving corps. Senior runningback Jeremy Adeyanju is also anticipated to carry a large portion of the offensive load this season. Although the Eagles graduated two phenomenal offensive linemen who went on to Division I programs, Kullos said he feels confident they’ll be alright this season without them.

“I think as a unit, as a whole, the five guys that we’ve got rotating through those spots are going to be able to fill that void collectively,” Kullos said.

Junior offensive lineman Gabe Alexander agrees with Kullos, saying he trusts the guys next to him to do their job.

“I’m honestly not really worried,” Alexander said. “I feel like we’ve got a great group that’s ready to fight.”

The Eagles got a new offensive coordinator in Nick Gehrts, too.

“Our new coach, Coach Gehrts, loves to spread the ball,” Alexander said. “I’m really excited to see what happens.”

Not only will Gehrts bring a new look to the team when they take the field this year, but Kullos said he also brings a demeanor that’s helped elevate all three phases of the program.

“He was number one on my list when I was trying to find a guy,” Kullos said. “I love the brand of football that he always plays on offense. His kids were always tough, and his offenses were always explosive, and those were the two things that we were looking for.”

Defensively, the Eagles lost a number of key players, but they return a number of important players, too. Kullos said in the back seven, they’re going to have some inexperience, but they return nearly all of their defensive front, which is going to be the strength of the defense this year. He also said some of the transfers should also help aleviate pressure on the back seven, and the team has some young linebackers who are anticipated to step up.

“There’s gonna be some new faces and some new guys showing up on the stat sheet,” Kullos said.

One of those linebackers you can expect to see is junior Max Ricart. Ricart made the move from running back to linebacker for the season and is expected to make an immediate impact.

“He looks phenomenal,” Kullos said.

Senior defensive nose Caleb Nold said he expects the defense to be resourceful and versatile on the field this year.

“I think you can expect to see a lot of hard-hitting players and some great adaptablility to whatever we see,” Nold said.

When it comes to special teams, Kullos said they’re fortunate enough at O’Connor to have a long snapper who is nationally ranked yet again this year in senior Braylon Logan. The Eagles lost their kicker, but Kullos said senior punter David Kimball will be taking over the kicking duties for the start of the season. After week five, Kullos said they anticipate senior transfer Garrison Burtis to take over kicking duties.

In all three phases of the game, the players feel good about what they’ve been working on.

“I think we will be a well-balanced team,” Nold said.

The Eagles have such a large number of players who all could have a breakout year, but Kullos named a few he’s got his eye on and anticipates big things from. The first was junior defensive end Ashton Childers, who played some as a sophomore for the Eagles. He also mentioned Nold, who he said was a, “freak athletically.”

Kullos said the goal for this year’s team is just to compete every single week and put their best foot forward. He said it feeds right into the team’s acronym of “CLIMB”, in which the C stands for competition.

“We expect to compete every week, regardless of our opponent,” Kullos said. “We expect to compete at practice. We expect to compete at walk through the day before the game. We’re always looking to get better every single day.”

The Eagles have an exciting schedule this year, but Kullos said that they need to make sure they control what they can control because the competition will be tight. He said the team tries not to pay too much attention to who is picked to win each week, no matter the opponent.

“If they catch us at our worst, and them at their best, there’s not a single team on our schedule that isn’t capable of winning against us,” Kullos said. “You’re always on your toes. You’re always going to have to battle through adversity, but I think it’s just the simple mindset of focusing on the controllables.”

For Nold, he believes the biggest challenge is making sure everyone on the team is taking every game seriously, as he said a number of players believe this year’s schedule is easier than last year.

“I think last year our schedule was harder, so it’s more of an issue getting people to see that it is still going to be a difficult thing,” Nold said.

Kullos said the Eagles have a chance to play some schools that they don’t have much history with, and those are games he’s anticipating, but really, he’s looking forward to the big dogs like Centennial and Liberty, who are right in the Eagles’ backyard. Nold also mentioned he’s looking forward to both of those matchups, as they’re a good litmus test to see where the Eagles stand.

“Liberty is a good game because it really helps to see where we need to improve,” Nold said. “They’re the ones that challenge us the most. Centennial is really good, too. Some of our players know their players and they also challenge us really well.”

“Those games that are close to home, we want to win the neighborhood,” Kullos said. “We want to play those games, and we want to play in those games every year ... Those ones tend to come with the biggest consequences, good and bad.”

Building on the community aspect of the game, Kullos also mentioned building his program around the local neighborhood kids, despite the fact that the program got 17 transfers in the offseason.

“I want to win with the kids who can walk to O’Connor and are neighborhood kids,” Kullos said. “That’s who we build it around. We have a Junior Eagles program where we pour into these kids, we get them in the facilities and we coach their coaches ... We do everything we can to get these neighborhood kids in the door as freshmen and keep them through their senior year.”

Brittany Bowyer is a Report for America corps member, covering sports for Independent Newsmedia in Arizona. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.