Eagles up early for first practice

Vista del Lago graduated almost their entire starting football team in May and with the return of Mike Struebing as head coach after four years away, this year's team is almost an entire new group. That made for a bunch of fresh faces on Monday for the first day of football practice, starting bright and early at 6 a.m. One fresh face was senior Jack Cromwell, who had an injury-plagued junior year. "I'm super excited for the season," Cromwell said. "It's been a long wait to put helmets on." The team, which has practiced in the early morning to avoid the heat of the afternoon for three or four seasons, had a good two-hour practice. "Coming off the layoff, the first week we want to make sure the guys understand what we were doing before the layoff," Struebing said. "We're shaking off the rust. It gives us a chance to see if we learned an offense, a defense and special teams or what we retained. "Next week is continued refinement. We've seen the big picture, now it's all the little details and making sure that it's all successful." Porter Maldonado, a junior guard on the varsity team for the first time, said everything is going well, better than he expected. "It's going pretty well," said Maldonado of his first year on varsity. "It's a lot more welcoming than I imagined. Even though we can all be leaders, I feel the seniors are good leaders and they're doing a good job of leading the team."