New teams, new players — even a new name.
Welcome to the Coastal 101, the Northern Area’s third-tier football league and home to six teams that last fall were scattered across four different leagues.
Camarillo, fresh off a two-year stint in the top-tier Marmonte League, dropped two levels. Calabasas came down from the second-tier Coastal Canyon League while Oak Park, Buena and Oxnard stood pat.
Agoura is the only team that moved up into the Coastal 101, jumping a level after going undefeated in the fourth-tier Tri-County League last fall.
The Chargers have their eyes on another league crown.
“It is definitely a more challenging league and there is excitement to that,” Agoura head coach Dustin Croick said of his program’s rise. “(There is) a different feeling for the entire team, knowing that we are going to earn it if we are going to get there this year.”
Last year’s league champion Ventura and runner-up Moorpark moved up in this releaguing cycle, while last-place Royal dropped down.
Senior George Hastings is all that’s left of the mighty offensive trio that powered the Chargers into the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 semifinals last season, including first-team all-county players in quarterback Gavin Gray, now at Washington State, and star wideout Tyler Starling.
“We adapt,” Croick said. “We are going to find a way.”
The Chargers aren’t the only team in the hunt for the first-ever Coastal 101 title.
After two years of sowing the seeds of development against the area’s best in the Marmonte League, Camarillo is ready to reap.
“They have learned a couple of lessons from the last couple years, kind of licked their wounds,” Camarillo head coach Nate Anderson said of his team. “We have become battle-tested.”
With 146 players in the program, including 49 on varsity, the Scorpions are deep — nowhere more clearly than in the secondary where players like Jack Norton, Cruz Howe and Caden Clem are lurking.
The damage done by a wave of outgoing transfers at Oak Park this offseason was blunted by the arrival of four-star quarterback Bryson Kennedy out of Texas and receiver Gary Ferguson from St. Bernard.
“It kind of swung the needle,” Oak Park head coach Casey Webb said of his incoming transfers. “At one point, we were down to like 25 kids on varsity.”
While Agoura and Oak Park start new transfer arms, quarterbacks who took their first varsity snaps last season like Buena’s Ryder Bucy and Oxnard’s Adrian Guerra will step into the limelight this fall.
“It was good for me to learn, to adjust, to work under pressure,” Guerra said of his experience last year. “It really built me as a player.”
At Camarillo, both Brad Barlow and Dylan Nicholson, whom Barlow took over from after he suffered a season-ending knee injury three games into the season, return.
Calabasas senior Dominik Hardy is the most experienced passer in the league, having thrown for nearly 4,500 career yards.
“There is a lot of experience at key positions, which really helps us,” Calabasas head coach Cary Harris said. “Hopefully, the rest of the team and some of the younger guys can fuel off of that.”
Top returning players
Newcomers to watch
Biggest departures
Predicted order of finish:
Dominic Massimino is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at dominic.massimino@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcsdominic on Twitter and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Breaking down a new high school football league — the Coastal 101
Reporting by Dominic Massimino, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dominic Massimino, Ventura County Star | USA TODAY Network
