For the first time since the 2021 season, Santa Clarita Christian football is winless through the first four games of the season.
Fresno Christian defeated the Cardinals on Saturday, 68-32, but despite the loss, head coach Austin Fry believes that winless start to the season is a good opportunity for the team to understand what went wrong and how they can be better moving forward.
“We scheduled really tough this year on purpose to test who we are,” Fry said. “And we go 0-4 but there are little pieces here and there where I’m like, man, we have five games now to fix things in a manageable way.”
The Cardinals have been battling injuries all season and were without running back Chase Kalinski and lineman Gabe Wilson.
But one player the team did have returning was sophomore quarterback Dax Woodward, who’s returning from an injury he suffered back in June.
“Dax came back for this game and was able to step in at quarterback and just played great,” Fry said. “He’s got a lot of really good athletic instincts where even if some of the stuff he does is unorthodox, he makes it works because there’s instincts that you can’t necessarily teach.”
Although Woodward was available to start the game, Fry opted to begin with Caleb Grissom lining up under center as the senior quarterback has started every game this season.
But in the final minutes of the first half, the Cardinals were down 44-0 and Fry ultimately decided it was time to throw Woodward out to produce some offense.
With two minutes left to go in the second quarter, Woodward threw two touchdown passes in back-to-back drives to close out the half and generated some momentum going into the second half.
“Dax got injured in June, so we weren’t so sure when he was going to get back,” Fry said. “I want to honor his [Caleb Grissom] time that he spent preparing and studying and investing. He’s been in every practice and he’s trying to take a leadership role. So, the conversation going forward is going to be, how do we maybe transition that role to more of a support lead who can step in when we need you again.”
Grissom has been the emergency quarterback since the start of the year, and now that there are some pieces who are coming back, Fry has nothing but praise for his senior who’s given it all in the most difficult of times.
“There’s obviously going to be some discouragement there, but that’s because he took ownership of a really difficult circumstance,” Fry said. “He’s been the leader of our team for the last two weeks when we’ve had 11 guys out. Now guys are starting to come back, and it gives us the opportunity to expand things a little bit with Dax.”
Woodward tallied four touchdown passes throughout the game, three passing and one rushing. And although it wasn’t enough to come back and beat Fresno Christian, Fry believes there isn’t much to work on as he saw a lot of good qualities from his team despite the result.
“We’re going to double down on the things that worked,” Fry said. “Our offensive line looked amazing today and even our run defense looked really good. It helps to have a narrow amount of things to work on.”
Looking ahead, the Cardinals hit the road to Palos Verdes to face the Chadwick Dolphins before their first Hertige League match of the year the following week.
“Chadwick presents another opportunity to get better and then we have four straight league games,” Fry said. “What a way to set it up where you challenge yourself really heavy and go into league as prepared and tough as you can be. On the one hand, would I have liked a couple of extra wins early on? Sure. But the lessons we have learned from this tough non-league is going to serve us way better than had we want two or three games by blowout scores.”
