Stone Ridge Christian’s backfield trio tough to stop

Austin Rees is like a battering ram. The Stone Ridge Christian High senior enjoys lowering his shoulder and powering through whatever stands in his way.

Sophomore Shane Casillas is more like a gazelle, darting left and right, leaving would-be tacklers grabbing at air.

Senior Jonathan Collazo is a hybrid of Rees and Casillas. He’s big enough to run through a tackle, but also quick and agile enough to make somebody miss.

The Knights’ trio of running backs has combined for 1,945 yards and 25 touchdowns through the first half of the season and have helped Stone Ridge Christian win four consecutive games heading into tonight’s game against Millennium (1-3) at Castle Field. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.

“It’s hard to throw the football when you have the three running backs like that,” said Stone Ridge Christian coach Art DeJager, whose team is 4-1 and 1-0 in the Central California Athletic Alliance. “Why would you put the ball in the air?”

The Knights rarely throw the ball, averaging just three passing attempts per game.

Stone Ridge Christian had 598 rushing yards in a 54-0 win against Woodland Christian two weeks ago and average 486 yards on the ground per game.

DeJager and the Knights knew what they had coming into the season in a big, strong, experienced offensive line. All five starters returned in William Vander Woude, Robbie McKee, Travis Hooker, Sybrand Vader Dussen and Luke Jenkins, along with tight end Mark Hooker.

DeJager and his coaching staff weren’t exactly sure who would become the featured ball carrier after losing Bailey Dahlhoff (1,910 yards and 37 touchdowns) to graduation, but they knew they had some worthy candidates.

“We knew somebody would step up,” assistant coach Anthony DeJager said. “Every year somebody steps up.”

Casillas has picked up where he left off last season, when he rushed for 70 yards on just five carries in the Knights’ 19-14 win over Elliot Christian in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division VII championship game.

At 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, Casillas is the Knights’ smallest running back, but he’s a threat to score every time he touches the ball. He leads Merced County in rushing with 840 yards and 12 touchdowns on 60 carries.

If you think Casillas only gets his yards on the perimeter because of his size, think again.

“Shane is a great inside runner,” Anthony DeJager said. “He gets five or six yards inside and then he bounces it outside. The other guys have learned a lot from him on how to hit the hole hard.”

At 6 feet and 210 pounds, Rees is the fullback responsible for getting tough yards inside, but capable of exploding for big runs. Rees has rushed for 538 yards and eight touchdowns on 65 carries.

“I’m more of a power running back,” Rees said. “Shane is a real finesse player. He’s the best out of us three if he gets in the open field. Johnny is a good finesse guy and he can hit hard.

“The three of us combined makes a pretty good running back. We can make up for it if we miss a block, but our line helps us out a lot. If we didn’t have our line we wouldn’t get a lot of yards. Our line does a lot of the heavy lifting for us.”

Collazo is a chiseled 6-1 and 190 pounds. He gives opposing defenses another weapon to worry about from his wingback position. Collazo has rushed for 567 yards and five touchdowns on 55 carries.

Collazo believes the Knights’ preparation is a big reason for their success. The Stone Ridge Christian playbook isn’t very thick. The coaching staff believes in perfecting the few plays they do run, which means spending a lot of time at practice working through each play step by step to make sure they have the timing down.

“Our coaches always tell us to do the common thing uncommonly well,” Collazo said. “We do a lot of power steps. It definitely gets tedious and it’s boring, but we know it’s for our benefit. It’s going to make us better.”

Rees agreed.

“We’re not the biggest guys out on the field, but we definitely have the best technique,” he said. “We’re the best at what we do, which is the double wing. Every day we practice our steps. We don’t have many plays. We maybe have three passing plays. We only have a few running plays, but we may have three different variations for each play. At practice we practice the same thing over and over again to get the steps right.”

Having three running backs to share the load gives the Knights the advantage of not overworking one player. Defenses always have to bring down someone with fresh legs, which is tough to do late in the game when they’ve had to battle the Knights’ offensive line all night.

“I’ve had a couple plays this year where I wasn’t touched,” Casillas said. “You know your line is blocking for you when nobody touches you.”

The Knights hope they can ride their smash-mouth, old-school style offense featuring the trio of backs and their dominant offensive line to a second consecutive section title.

“You know the old saying, ‘When you got a horse, you ride him,’ Art DeJager said. “When you have three, it’s awesome.”

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Stone Ridge Christian’s backfield trio tough to stop."