Marysville ready to run after rough 2009

A stunned Cullen Meyer sat in a quiet locker room last September trying to wrap his head around a simple, yet painful set of questions.

Is something wrong? What happened to the Marysville High football team? You're the defending section champions and now you're 0-3.

"I didn't expect this," he said. "Maybe I got too spoiled last year."

He's referring to 2008, when the team won the first section title in the school's 137-year history in his second year as coach. In the midst of the celebration taking place in the fog covering War Memorial Stadium, he said he was "numb."

Nine months later in that locker room following a loss to Gridley, the numbness was there too, for entirely different reasons. But as of today, Meyer and the Indians have shook the stigma of a 3-7 season and believe they have a legitimate shot to win the reformatted Golden Empire League, he said.

"You can tell there is a different attitude this year," Meyer said. "We're more focused and a closer knit team."

His bruising standout linebacker and running back put it more bluntly.

"We have more athletes and more speed and intensity," Michael Barabin said. "It's as if everybody wants to hit somebody."

No team in the Mid-Valley had a more precipitous drop in record than the Indians from one year to the next, and injuries had a lot to do with that. Aside from losing a legion of players, there was a point during 2009 when Meyer had 12 starting players out with injuries. Still, the Indians managed to rally off three straight wins after that 0-3 start. But the season completely fell apart after Barabin broke his leg against Capital Christian.

"Last year was real rough," Meyer said. "To game plan and see the success of it then to have the injuries in the game makes it tough."

Now Barabin is healthy and he leads a group of returning players who are more focused on winning then being cliquey, like the seniors and juniors were last year, he said.

"For the seniors that we have back, (last season) left a bad taste in their mouths," Meyer said. "They don't care how we get it done, they don't want to lose."

That includes new senior quarterback Steven Arostegui, who will be handing the ball off to Barabin and dynamic sophomore Cole Hannum, who also is a threat at receiver. Adam Anderson is the Indians' other big play option at 6-foot-5.

The one area will Marysville will have to improve quickly is on the offensive line.

The Indians return both Neil Denny and Lennox Jacobson but a lot of juniors will be rotated through, Meyer said.

But if the Indians can fortify that line, it will be back to the same strategy that gave them their first taste of a title.

"Defense and ground game will be the focus for us," Meyer said.