Sterling RBs offer a little bit of everything

On their first drive of their first game this season, the Sterling Golden Warriors marched down the field and scored – and on the way, attempted exactly zero passes.

That touchdown drive set the tone for what, over the first four games of the year, would become a strong rushing attack for the Warriors, and a big part of Sterling’s 4-0 start to the season.

“Our group’s really good at hitting the holes,” Sterling junior Jahshawn Howard said. “Most of us are all really power runners. Noe [Aponte], Noe’s different, he’s very shifty, very quick.”

Quarterback Cooper Willman is still one of Sterling’s top rushing threats with 60 carries for 349 yards this year, but the Warriors’ crew of running backs is offering up a balanced attack.

Aponte has 61 rushes for 366 yards and eight touchdowns, the most rushing scores of any back in the area; Howard has 63 rushes for 289 yards and seven scores; and Xavier Arreola has 14 runs for 92 yards.

“We go hard every practice,” Aponte said. “We’re just fast, quick, and we’ve got power behind us, too. We just read our blocks really well and we try to hit the hole as fast as we can.”

Aponte, Howard and Arreola offer a mix of skill sets to throw at a defense.

“I feel like I’m a little better at running side-to-side and trying to get vertical,” Aponte said. “[Howard] is good at running vertical, and he’s a lot faster.”

Arreola, meanwhile, is the guy who will just go straight up the middle and run over people.

“Xavier’s our strongest running back,” Howard said. “He’s a major power runner. He knows how to keep his feet going, put his shoulder down if he has to. He can get good runs.”

While that group can make defenders miss, beat them to the corner, or run through them, the Sterling offense has even more weapons on top of that – with Willman’s ability to run the ball, not to mention his 382 passing yards.

“It’s hard to keep up with us because we know how to do a lot of different things,” Arreola said.

Sterling’s running backs also have the help of a veteran offensive line in front of them.

“I feel very safe with them in front of me,” Howard said. “Literally every drive I run, we have Aidan Munoz-Ripley, he tells me just follow him and he’s going to get me through the hole. I just know, if I’m behind him, I’m going to get yards.”

Howard and Aponte are juniors while Arreola is a senior, but Arreola said he has learned from the younger backs.

“My young cats, man, I love them,” he said. “They teach me to keep my head up. You’re not always going to get that run that you want; it takes time. You’ve got to get those little runs at times. They teach me patience and a lot of good things.”

The three also have a good working relationship in practice, trying to help each other continually get better.

“What we see in the hole, or what they see, we’re always trying to help each other out,” Aponte said.

Recent vintages of Sterling football have seen lightning-quick backs who can break off a big play, leading to some very short drives. This year’s squad has seen some longer drives, like in the Week 3 win over Alleman when Sterling had an 11-play drive followed by an 18-play drive in the first half. Those two drives alone saw Sterling convert five third-down plays and three fourth-down plays, and attempt all of four passes.

Arreola said keeping drives and plays going is one of the calling cards of this Sterling offense.

“Our rotation, if we put one guy in, he’ll keep it going until the next guy gets it and we get into that end zone,” Arreola said. “I think that’s what we’re really good at.”

And that mentality has served the team well in the quite frequent situations where the Warriors are trying to burn some clock late in a game with the lead.

“I feel comfortable just going up the middle and getting through,” Arreola said. “Coach always tells me to treat it like it’s fourth-and-one and get that first down. I’m always driving and trying to get that first down. I’m pretty comfortable in those situations.”

Sterling will kick off its Week 5 game against Quincy a day late thanks to storms going through the area on Friday, but that allowed the Golden Warriors one extra walk-through and film session on Friday.

“[Friday] is just really a mental day,” Howard said. “We know everything that we’re going to do, there’s nothing different. We can’t slack off [Friday] because if we go in there [Saturday] not ready to play, we’re going to get destroyed.”