Colton, CA—Last night, the Colton Yellowjacket football team scrimmaged against Hillcrest High School to open up the 2023 football season. With the season’s first official game next week against AB Miller on Aug. 18, it was time for the Yellowjackets to test themselves against a team from another school.
As Colton takes the field for this season, they are looking to build on their successful 2022 season, when they made it to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 13 playoffs.
“This is the first time we are gonna get to see a live look first at another team,” said head coach Ray Rodriguez about the scrimmage set-up. About the match-up against Hillcrest, a team that made it to the second round of the CIF division nine playoffs last season, Rodriguez said, “There was some good, and there was some bad for us tonight. We showed our age.”
Colton’s team this year is a young squad. Last year, 20 seniors from the team graduated. This year, the Yellowjackets have 10 senior players, and are led by two freshman standouts: quarterback Koa Regalado and receiver Riley Rogers.
Both of these players got a number of reps during the game and showed flashes of what they were capable of, with Regalado and Rogers connecting on multiple long passes.
However, there were areas for growth with this team. Regalado still has work to do to build his chemistry on the field with receivers James Gonzales and Cesar Loera. And the team’s defense, which is still undersized compared to much of its competition, is still a work in progress.
The players are excited about the upcoming season. Gonzales shared that his goal this season was to win eight games and make the playoffs again. Regalado told us that he has a new goal every week, and that next week’s goal was to beat AB Miller.
Perhaps senior tackle Ralph Delgado said it best about the team’s goals this season: “Win league. Win a ring. Win it all.”
