NEWMAN, Calif – Aaron Souza saw a lot of pluses and some minuses with his team facing three different schools.

The Orestimba High football head coach and his assistant coaches saw their squad in action at the 13th annual Orestimba Westside Scrimmage at Coach Roger Pauletto Field at Warrior Stadium on Friday. The host Warriors lined up against Atwater, Lathrop and West of Tracy squads in pool play action. There were a combined eight schools taking part.

Orestimba first faced Atwater, which is from the Central California Conference. Souza was pleased, for the most part, with his team competing against a high school that its enrollment is nearly double the size as Orestimba – Atwater hovers around 2,000 while the Warriors are near 1,000.

The Warriors, behind quarterback Jacob Valenzuela, moved the chains against the Falcons’ defense.

“I thought, offensively, we were able to move the ball and did a really good job executing,” Souza said. “Jacob did a good job of getting rid of the football. I thought (running back Nicolas) Cuevas did a great job of running the ball.”

Souza also praised the play of wide receiver Dylan McCauley catching the ball during the offensive series.

“I just felt, like all around, our offense played very well,” said Souza, whose Warriors are running the shotgun spread formation. “Our offense played very well against a higher level of competition in Atwater.”

But the Warriors’ defense against the Falcons’ offense had a different story early.

“At first, I thought we were kind of on our heels,” Souza said. “I thought it took us a few plays to settle down.”

Then Orestimba lined up to play Lathrop. The Warriors also started this scrimmage on offense.

“Once again, we did a good job in moving the ball,” Souza said. “The combination of Valenzuela-to-McCauley looked really well. Our offensive line pass protection played really well.”

Souza also felt Cuevas and another Warrior running back in Allen Garcia were effective in the team’s ground game against the Spartans’ defense.

The Warriors, however, had some short-yardage situations that Souza said, “we’ve got to clean up.”

It was déjà vu for Orestimba when it switched to defense and Lathrop, which runs the Wing-T formation, from moving the ball early in their scrimmage.

“It took us a few plays that kind of adjust to the speed, and figure out exactly how we wanted to play things,” Souza said.

Toward the end of the scrimmage against Lathrop, Souza was happy with how his Warriors improved against the Spartans’ offense.

Orestimba capped off the scrimmage with its defense against West. Cuevas, who plays inside linebacker, had some big hits.

Souza felt that the performances of junior defensive tackle Robert Corella, sophomore guard Rylan Ceja and cornerback Donovan Torres were very solid and strong in the scrimmages.

Overall, doing the basics entering the scrimmage was key for Souza and his assistant coaches.

“Our biggest thing was to make sure that we were lined (up) correctly, make sure that we play with a great effort,” Souza said. “We wanted to make sure that we did good tackling. I felt our effort was probably the best thing… 11 hats to the ball.”
Open field tackling is an area Souza pointed out that his Warriors must improve on as the season progresses.

“There were some aspects that I was not happy with our open field tackling,” Souza said.

The other high schools at the scrimmage and facing each other in the other pool were Patterson, Pitman of Turlock, El Capitan of Merced and Ceres.

The scrimmage had an 11-minute format, given only 1 minute to transition from offense to defense after 11 minutes.

Souza was pleased with the outcome of this year’s scrimmages.

“I felt that the scrimmage itself stayed on time,” Souza said. “It was a very productive scrimmage. I thought it was a great night.”

Mike Bush is a multimedia journalist who was born and raised in the Stanislaus and Merced County areas. Follow him on X/Twitter @MikeBMultimedia and Instagram @mikebushphotography.