Pacheco counting on spark from Aric Barton again

No one was more surprised by the instant success of Aric Barton than Barton himself.

The junior quarterback inherited the Pacheco job midway through the 2015 season when starter Carl Schofield exited the Central Valley game. The Panthers rallied around their underclassman, albeit in a loss, and outscored the Hawks 14-7 with Barton at the helm in the second half. Barton led Pacheco to a 47-39 shootout victory over El Capitan the next week and never looked back.

Barton ignited a stagnant offense and sparked a second-half surge as Pacheco bounced back from a 1-4 start to finish 5-5 and a surprising third in the Western Athletic Conference. The unit averaged 47 points per game and more than 475 yards per game in the final five games and forced league champ Patterson to yield a season-high 42 points in the Panthers’ only loss during the run.

With almost the entire offensive group back and the full spring and summer for Barton to sharpen his passing skills, the Panthers are optimistic they can be even more potent in 2016.

“I was surprised how it went,” said Barton, who finished the year with 823 passing yards, 415 rushing yards and 16 total touchdowns. “I didn’t expect to come in and do that right away. Something just seemed to click for us, and we got some momentum going. Once we did that, everybody started having fun again, and we just kept on going.

“I really feel like we can build off of the end of last year’s success. We have almost the entire offensive line back. We have most of our running backs back, and Chris (Munoz) and Carl (Schofield) give us two really good receivers. We’re more comfortable with each other, and we’re much closer as a team than we were a year ago. We expect big things.”

Pacheco coach David Snapp acknowledged that discord was one of the team’s biggest issues a season ago and a major contributor to the 1-4 start. The 4-1 finish, however, certainly helped alleviate some of the tension, but Snapp completely revamped the Panthers’ approach to team building in the offseason.

“I don’t know if it was because we had so many new faces and young guys contributing last year, but the kids didn’t really trust the coaches last season,” Snapp said. “If you can’t do that, it’s hard to trust each other. I think that was one of our main problems on the defensive side of the ball. Guys didn’t trust that the guy next to him was going to do his job, so we’d get ourselves out of position trying to do everyone’s job.

“I think the team is much closer, in part, because they went through the tough times together, and because of some of the changes we made. We started doing Panther introductions everyday. I make three kids get up and tell everybody three things they don’t already know about them, and then I ask a few questions. We don’t spend enough time in this day and age talking to each other anymore, so this is one way to get that dialogue going.”

Pacheco is certainly generating conversation coming into the season.

With proven running backs such as Tk Teneng and Cody Allred to run the triple-option Pacheco has made so successful, the offense is a known quantity. The Panthers’ defense is another matter. Pacheco yielded 41 points per game last season and hemorrhaged tons of yards per game as it struggled to tackle.

Snapp believes the issues have been addressed.

Munoz leads the unit after two seasons as an all-league safety. Big bodies on the line such as Josiah Molio’o-Collins (6-foot-1, 295 pounds), Angel Mosqueda (5-11, 265) and linebacker CJ Samifua (5-10, 215) should make Pacheco better against the run, while Teneng and Schofield will provide speed in the secondary.

“We definitely have the guys back there,” Snapp said. “I like the way they’re moving around. I like the way they move to the ball. We started to figure some things out toward the end of last year, and the group has just kept building on that. The best part is we have enough guys where we can rotate everyone. Very few are going to play both ways, so fatigue won’t be an excuse.

“We’re way further ahead as a team than we were a year ago, and I’m looking forward to getting after it.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2016 at 11:40 AM with the headline "Pacheco counting on spark from Aric Barton again."