Heading into the season, hampered by late summer and early fall injuries, the Rams were in trouble heading into the thick of their pre-season and league schedule.  Couple that with the fact that Graces had less than 15 seniors on their entire team...and none of them large bodies...the young and meek Rams were facing some serious trouble.

Athletic Director Vince Fanucchi, and most of the Garces coaching staff, have squawked since day one at the fact that they have to play in the bigger and tougher yosemite league...as have their perochial sister school San Joaquin Memorial, who has been bumped up to the NorthYosemite League in Fresno.

From the Rams perspective, the perennial small-school power has gone from owning the South Sequoia League in virutally every sport to being regulated to maybe one-or-two league titles a year with the big boys.

The Porterville CIF office and Jim Crichlow only have one message for Garces...

deal with it.

As for the rest of the SSL, the door has been opened for the likes of Tehachapi and Taft, with more success reached this year that would have not been possible with Garces in the mix in the 2004-2005 season.

With Garces gone, Taft's women's tennis team took the first league title won by a non-Garces team in almost 40 years, and took the SSL and CIF championship in boy's swimming.  For Tehachapi, the men's basketball and baseball teams won league titles, while the women's soccer and basketball teams reigned supreme with their stiffest competition out the door.

And of course, well all know what happened in the SSL in football last year.

As far as Garces was concerned last season, with so many sophomores and juniors on their team, and a Ram Junior Varsity team that went 5-5 (2-3 SEYL), things could improve for Garces...maybe.  The JV team did have some nice wins over Paraclete 21-0, Shafter 26-20, Highland 49-0, CVC 42-3, and Foothill 41-26...and players like Steven McDermott, and Kevin Kobliska could help John Fanucchi find a winning tone for 2005.

The JV team was not without it's controversy last year however, with many JV players, a majority of them starters, forced to sit out games (including Tehachapi) for disciplinary reasons.

I think that Garce's situation could have probably been summed up with their freshman team...a squad that went 4-0 in pre-league play only to get blown out by the competition in the SEYL...finishing with a 4-5 (0-5 SEYL) season. 

Ouch.

Future isn't exactly looking too bright.

JV PUSH - Tehachapi players like upcoming varsity player Levi Lantz (#11) should help the Warriors to a strong homecoming appearance against the Rams this fall.

Overall, many of Garces key performers from last season are gone, with All-SEYL 2nd Team players QB Jake Cauzza, RB Clint Keown, lineman Joaquin Villarreal, and DB Tommy Echechury lost to graduation.

Despite the losses, the Rams are expected to return two All-SEYL 2nd teamers on the offensive line in Marshall Dietrich (#78) and Josh Carrera (#68), while also returning 1st Team SEYL linebacker Ryan Drakos (#33), who was also an All-Area honorable mention.

Expected to take snaps under center for the Rams is second-year QB Brenden Barkete (#7), who threw for 332 yards in 2004 in significant playing time...mostly due to injury by Cauzza, who was thrown around like a rag-doll virtually all season long.

The Rams are also hoping for big things from Tommy Barron (#16), who as a sophomore last season had over eight yards per rushing attempt for 564 yards overall.  Barron turned some heads in the Ram's post season match-up with West last year, reeling off 126 yards and two scores against a stout Viking defense.  Garces scored 25 points in the contest, with Barron the only real offensive force for the Rams in the 48-25 defeat.

On defense, Garces expects big things from down lineman Michael Jimenez (#26), who forced three turnovers last season, along with linebackers Jack Campbell (#44) and Ben Sill (#65) and Jess Thomas (#24) and Derek Wales (#12) in the secondary.

Word on the street is that Garces only had just a handful of players out this summer suiting up, between 20-30 was what I heard.  Hopefully the Rams will be able to put a full squad together when the face the Warriors on the mountain in week 5...because has heated as this rivalry is...and the fact that it's homecoming night...

Motivation shouldn't be too hard to come by.

Injured But Victorious - With most of the regular starters out of commission for the contest, players like Zach Schlais (#5) got their chance to start and prove their worth in the Warrior Wing-T.  Schlais led all Tehachapi runners on the night last season with 46 yards on 11 attempts in the Warrior's 21-3 win.

Tehachapi owns an overall 15-14-2 record over Garces.  For a brief history of each of the games that the Warriors and Rams have played each other, click here.  You can also view 2004 Weekly Warrior analysis and 2004 game stats of the last meeting between these two teams.