Sea Kings Focus on Coming Season

Guy Gardner isn’t sure how good his Palos Verdes squad will be this season, but the Sea Kings coach believes the football team is headed in the right direction.

“We lost a lot of key seniors, but there is a pretty nice group of seniors coming up,” Gardner said. “How talented are we? I don’t know. We’ll see. But I think their cohesiveness and team unity is pretty evident.”

Last season, cohesiveness and talent helped the Sea Kings perform as one of the best teams in the Bay League, finishing as runner-up to champ Mira Costa and rolling to a 10-2 mark overall.

The lone regular-season loss was a 15-7 setback to the Mustangs. That snapped a six-game winning streak, but the Sea Kings bounced back by beating West Torrance, Redondo and Peninsula.

In the playoffs, they hammered West Ranch 48-10 in the opening round before falling to Westlake 49-28 in the second. But that’s all spilled milk to the Sea Kings. Their focus is on the upcoming season and their Sept. 2 opener at Moorpark.

Offensively, they could give defenses fits. Senior quarterback Zack Fixen, the guys who pushes the Sea Kings’ throttle, is a major reason. As a junior, Fixen passed for more than 1,300 yards with 20 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also ran for three scores.

“Obviously, our quarterback is one of our strengths, but I think our receiving corps is probably a strength, too,” Gardner said.

Robby Kolanz, the team’s leading receiver last season, returns and again is expected to give the offense a boost. Kolanz caught 28 passes for 656 yards—averaging more than 23 yards per catch—and 10 touchdowns last season.

Dean Alexi, another returning starter, also is a threat. He caught four touchdown passes last season, but he could get additional opportunities this season. So will receivers Donovan Ward and Lateef Munir.

“We try to be a 50-50 team with 50 percent passing and 50 percent running, but we might be putting the ball in the air a little more this year,” Gardner said.

A big reason for that is the loss to graduation of running back Marc Sasso, one of the South Bay’s best. Sasso rushed for 1,649 yards and 20 touchdowns, averaging more than six yards per carry. He also averaged more than 137 yards rushing per game.

“It’s a big hole to fill,” Gardner said.

However, the coach believes he has some able bodies to run the ball.

“These guys didn’t get a ton of carries last year because Marc Sasso carried us,” Gardner said. “This year, I think we’ve got four or five guys that are pretty talented in the backfield, and can double on defense, so we can mix and match more. We’re going to have a backfield by committee.”

Senior Zach Henkhaus is one of the committee members, as well as seniors Salvatore Vitale and Carl Aguirre and junior Roman Smith.

Defense is one area Gardner is keeping a keen eye on.

“We lost our three starting linebackers to graduation, so that’s going to be a challenge, how quick these guys ... come together,” Gardner said. “They need to mesh quickly and get up to speed on different game situations. We have younger guys at linebacker and if they are seniors, they’re still a little less experience than last year’s guys. So yes, defense is a question mark. But these kids are working hard.”

Gardner believes the defensive front, led by end Matt Costa, who doubles at tight end, will be a strength.

“Matt didn’t get to play a lot last year because he got hurt in the first game,” Gardner said. “But we’re expecting a lot from him this year.”