LANCASTER — Fall training camp can be scorching hot for just about any high school football team in Southern California, but the Antelope Valley especially feels like the inside of an oven.
Paraclete’s football players pay no mind as they practice amid the barren desert scape dotted with occasional heat-tolerant plant life. The Spirits feel they have something to prove, and it could come to a boil soon.
“You can’t cook in cold grease,” Antelope Valley defensive backs coach Michael Sheridan said.
Paraclete has been building success as a program with hopes of keeping high-level athletic talent at home. The Spirits went 1-9 overall in 2022 before bouncing back with a 7-4 record last season.
That 2022 record is still on players’ minds.
“That year, it was real hard not to stop playing. Losing every game is a different kind of pain,” senior lineman Anthony Soriano said.
“The text messages we received, like, everything. We never want to go back down there. But then again, that just pushes us to work out harder every day and just work when no one else is working.”
The 2023 season, Paraclete debuted a new turf football field and got out to a 6-0 start. Every home game was sold out in head coach John Perez’s third year at the helm.
The pinnacle of the season came when the Spirits hosted St. Francis, whose coach, Dean Herrington, previously coached at Paraclete. The homecoming game went to double-overtime and the Golden Knights came out on top 28-21.
This season, St. Francis will host Paraclete on its own homecoming night. The rivalry — along with the bounce-back success of the team — has kept talent like three-star cornerback Stacy Gentle at the school.
“I feel like no one knew that we were going to be good last year,” Gentle said. “We shocked the city. Our first home game was crowded; it was packed. We sold out. It brought joy to me.”
Gentle is part of a secondary that Sheridan says is the best in California. There’s certainly skill in that phase of the defense, which includes cornerback Jaylin Wilson. The senior wants to pursue track and field as well as football in college and ran a season-best 21.93 seconds in the 200 meters in the most recent track season.
“No one’s catching me,” Wilson said. “That’s the confidence I have in myself. Same with defense: If I get a pick, no one’s catching me. If you catch me, you’re pretty fast, but that’s not happening.”
The Paraclete coaching staff has ramped up its recruiting efforts in correlation with the wins. Gentle’s abilities bring a lot of college recruiters to practices, which creates opportunities for his teammates to get looked at as well.
Sheridan said that over 20 NCAA Division I schools came to scout in the spring including Washington, UCLA, USC and Colorado State. The coaching staff also took players to camps hosted by colleges and 7-on-7 tournaments during that time.
The recruiting efforts are done to force the spotlight on Paraclete. Signing day ceremonies are now held at the school, too, to bring attention to players moving on to play in college and show hometown kids that Paraclete is worth their time.
Sheridan has seen his own relatives leave the Antelope Valley in favor of schools based in the San Fernando Valley.
“We’re trying to keep those kids that go down to the Sierra Canyons, go down to the Chaminades, the Alemany’s, some of the kids out here even go to St. Francis,” he said. “We’re trying to keep them out here. I feel like if we have all the talent around here at one place, we can compete.”
Paraclete was placed in Division 4 for the CIF Southern Section playoffs last season and the Spirits have aspirations to go even higher than that. Sheridan said that moving up in divisions is a higher-priority goal than a league championship.
In a desert environment that may appear lifeless, the Spirits see nothing but potential.
“Paraclete is where the dogs are at. We right here,” Wilson said. “Be yourself and prove everyone wrong.”
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