LEETSDALE — Over the past number of seasons, Quaker Valley has fielded a young and inexperienced roster with not a lot of seniors in the program. This season in Jason Cappa’s third year as head coach, the roster will once again be young, but the experience within its roster is growing.
“It is huge to have that experience within your roster,” Cappa said. “Every year I have seen this team progress. Last season, we competed with a lot of schools and a lot of teams who doubled our roster size. But even though they had the advantage in size, we were competing in one to two quarters. We weren’t physically and mentally strong enough to compete for four quarters because of that. The team saw that when we can do things the right way, we can compete with anybody.”
Throughout his more than two decades of coaching football, Cappa has coached several different teams.
This season, however, Cappa believes that this group that he has the opportunity to coach is one of the closest teams that he has coached throughout his 24-year coaching career because of the dedication the team has to getting better.
“Every year that you coach, you never really coach the same group of players because you always get the same group along with the freshmen on the team. This is one of the closest groups that I have coached over my 24-year coaching career. A big reason why that is the case is because when they were younger and they were taking their lumps, they were doing it together, and that says a lot about their character. At the end of last season, I had never started an offseason program before January, but these kids were together in the offseason around 15-20 working for this year in November.”
More: 'The process is bigger than one outcome': Quaker Valley football excited for future
Throughout the offseason, Cappa has stressed the importance of depth on his roster and has made sure that his team knows one important thing: Whenever they go out on the field Friday nights and his 11 starters are out get fatigued, there are a number of other players that can step up and fill the void to make sure the team does not wear throughout the game.
“The first thing that I told these guys is that even though there are only 11 starters that can be out on the field at a time, I told these guys that there are 15-20 starters. No matter if you are on the first team or the second team, you play like a starter, and these guys have bought into that,” Cappa said.
Head coach: Jason Cappa (Third season, 4-25)
2023 record: (1-9, 1-5 Western Hills)
Top players lost: None
Top players returning: Dom Cox-Giles, Jack Diemert, Lewis Juarez-Safran, Logan Benedict, Chris Brown
Offense: Quaker Valley will instill a new-look offense this season under new offensive coordinator Shad Stepp, who has had previous stops at Pine Richland, Moniteau and Butler. The Quakers will be running a spread RPO offense that is built for this Quaker Valley roster and will give the returning starters a chance to succeed. Players like running back Jack Diemert can do a little of everything on the offensive side of the ball. Instead of having an opponent key in on him, Stepp brings the ability to run a balanced offense that can allow the team’s skill players to make plays. Along with Diemert, the team also returns Dom Cox-Giles, who was the team's leading receiver a season ago.
Defense: The Quaker Valley defense will have the team’s most depth out of anywhere on the field this season in a multitude of positions. The team’s defense is led by defensive back Dom Cox-Giles, who has played a key role on the defensive side of the ball over the past several seasons. Having depth on the defensive side of the ball with players who have varsity playing experience will be crucial for the Quakers this season.
More: Beaver County Times' 2024 High School football preview
Classification: 3A
Last WPIAL playoff appearance: 2018
Last WPIAL title: 2017
WPIAL titles: 1
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Quaker Valley brings back experienced group for 2024 season
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