Benefield: Friday night lights shining in Healdsburg again

HEALDSBURG

The score didn’t matter much. Not to Charlie Delfino or to Karen Klick or Linda Cameron. Or to Tony Lewis.

The Healdsburg High Greyhounds lost their varsity football home opener 27-0 to Justin-Siena on Friday night. But many folks in the stands didn’t seem to mind the score. They were just happy to be there. Happy to watch the hot afternoon sun set behind the scoreboard at Rec Park and feel the onset of an evening breeze.

And they were happy to see night descend and the field lights flicker to life.

This time last year, the ’Hounds aborted their varsity season. Demoralized by an 0-2 start and facing dwindling roster numbers, the players voted to discontinue the season. Some players moved down to junior varsity. Some hung it up. But after that, kickoffs were mostly at 4:30 p.m. and the night was over by 7 p.m.

Not on Friday.

On Friday, two full squads of Healdsburg football players suited up and went toe to toe with largely bigger, faster athletes from Justin-Siena. On Friday, the Healdsburg High pep band played the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” then went into Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.”

And the Braves of Justin-Siena certainly did. The Braves ran (and threw) roughshod over the ’Hounds much of the night. It was 20-0 after one quarter and 27-0 at the half.

But unlike last season, when the final score between these two squads was 61-0 and served as the proverbial straw that broke the ’Hounds’ collective back, the home team kept it 27-0 through the final two quarters.

If the Braves took their foot off the gas and put in their second string, that didn’t matter ?much either. The ’Hounds hung in. After the game, ?first-year coach Shaun Montecino heaped praise upon his players. His voice quavered almost imperceptibly as he talked about their effort in the second half.

“We are all about heart,” he said. “We are a small team with big hearts.”

And those hearts have had to be strong. The team was criticized far and wide for walking away last year. First they had to bear the weight of losing football, then they had to bear the weight of a very public judgment.

Klick, whose son was a senior on that team, said she watched him lose a crucial rhythm that sports can provide.

“When he didn’t get to play last year, it really emotionally hit him,” she said. “He’d come home from school and be ‘So, what now? Where are my friends?”

And the entire community, and especially everyone at Healdsburg High School, had to rethink how Friday nights in fall unfold. The team is in its 123rd year, according to announcer and historian Dick Bugarske. The end of the varsity campaign was felt deeply, and often by those who don’t, or never have, played football.

“We felt it on campus last year,” Cameron said.

Cameron, whose two grown sons played football for the ’Hounds, is also the school’s registrar. She said she saw a change around school when the varsity season ended abruptly.

“It felt completely different,” she said. “I mean, all the kids still supported the JV team, but without those varsity players walking around in their home varsity (uniform) on Fridays, it just felt really different.”

On Friday, Cameron and a host of other parents and boosters were manning the snack shack as afternoon turned to evening. Cameron views her Friday nights of friendly service as payback for all that her sons got from ’Hounds athletics, especially football. So to see it return Friday night meant something.

Plus, it gave Cameron time to reconnect. Many of the crew in the snack shack are longtime volunteers. Dishing out hamburgers and nachos is their standing date together.

The game meant something, too, to Delfino, whose son Brett was lined up for the ’Hounds at right tackle against Justin-Siena. The elder Delfino is a Healdsburg grad.

“If they’re having a good time, I’m having a good time,” he said when asked if the numbers on the scoreboard stung at all. “If they can come off the field with a smile on their face, then I’m happy.”

Farther up in the stands sat Tony Lewis. He didn’t grow up in Healdsburg. He’s from Mendocino County, but he’s a football guy. He played in college. He comes just to enjoy the games. If he knows a player or their family, all the better.

“I went to a couple of the JV games last year,” he said.

He, too, wasn’t bothered by the score.

“They are getting pretty excited when they have a good play, although there haven’t been that many,” he said, smiling. “They are out there learning camaraderie, they are learning teamwork. If they all stick together …”

Winning is great, but losing can be valuable, too. It can test an athlete and a coach in a way that winning sometimes cannot.

That said, ’Hounds backers remained remarkably upbeat Friday night about the potential of this particular squad.

“I actually think they are going to have a really good year, with the way things are coming together,” Charlie Delfino said.

In the middle of his thought, the ’Hounds pounced on a loose ball. They had forced a fumble and recovered the ball. The crowd’s cheers broke his sentence midway through.

“Just like that,” he said. “When they make plays like that.”

Highlights - the football kind - were not in abundance Friday night. Senior defensive end Emilio Medina had 12 tackles and two sacks and senior Brian Garcia had 16 tackles and forced a fumble. Junior quarterback Cole Conley was 6 for 27 for 65 yards while his offensive line struggled to manage a bigger, faster Justin-Siena side.

Before the game, some players talked of having something to prove, what with the way last season ended. But some of them spoke more in terms of opportunity. And they spoke of a certain kind of thankfulness that they got to trot down the stairs at the east end of the stadium and jog onto the field in their varsity jerseys.

“As a kid growing up, watching the ’Hounds, I always wanted to be a ’Hound,” Brett Delfino said before the game. “It feels amazing to put on the black jersey.”

As the night wore on, the crowd thinned. The student section, once rowdy in the ?first half, cleared out after providing a raucous tunnel through which the ’Hounds ran onto the field to start the second half. The pep band went home. And the cheerleaders? There weren’t any cheerleaders - the school is still searching for a coach for that squad.

But the diehards remained firmly stationed in the seats. They cheered defensive stops. A few yelled instructions from on high. But many simply visited, watching for friends and family as much as watching the game.

In that way, the score mattered remarkably little, if it mattered at all. As the clock wound down, Charlie Delfino watched his son play on the field below. He wasn’t yelling or cheering, but he was smiling.

“I’m glad it’s back,” he said. “I’m really glad it’s back.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud, “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”