Sherwood Christian shaping into mature program

ALBANY — In recent years, there have been times when Sherwood Christian had to look long and hard to find 11 people to put on the football field.

Head coach Chad Evans doesn’t have that problem this year. In fact, the GICAA program has grown to the point where it can put 11 people on each side of the ball and have a full practice.

Running plays against air is out. Throwing against a live defense is in.

“We laughed the first day of spring when we came out and didn’t have to run offense or defense against barrels; I wasn’t real sure I could coach without having to run against barrels,” Evans said jokingly. “That’s just the way we’ve done things out of necessity for awhile. So it’s nice.”

What pleases Evans more than the increase in roster size is the number of players who have returned to the program and continue to develop in the Sherwood system.

Evans said most of the players taking part in Sherwood’s program were involved last year. That has decreased the Eagles’ reliance on transfers from other schools.

“Over the last 10 years, we kind of got in a rut where we were relying on a lot of transfers coming in, five or six a year, just to even field a team,” Evans said. “One of my big goals coming in to the program was to try to build from within so that we could get our young guys to come up through the program.

“That’s kind of where we are this year, 22 on the roster, and 20 were here last year.”

Sherwood, which has eight offensive and nine defensive starters returning from an 0-9 team, will have some senior leadership from longtime members of the Eagles’ program. Will Alderman returns at quarterback, while Wesley Pollock is expected to anchor the offensive and defensive lines.

Both Alderman and Pollock are longtime Sherwood football participants.

“It’s very exciting to see guys who I’ve watched play below me finally get to play and just play together as a unit,” Alderman said. “It’s exciting, promising times here at Sherwood, not just for this season but also as we go forward into the next season with the young guys we have.”

Sherwood opens the season Friday at home against Fullington.