Although Sedona Red Rock High School head football coach John Bradshaw returns 28 players from his rookie 7-3 season, only 11 showed up Wednesday, June 8, to their first summer competition.

The seven-on-seven scrimmage results at host Camp Verde High School bore that out against the host Cowboys and five other teams, as the Scorpions could muster no better than a tie with Bagdad High School.

“We’d have three extra [player]s for the seven-on-seven, if everyone showed up that was supposed to,” Bradshaw said. “This is the first time we’ve actually had enough to have a decent number to go.”

Instead, just one quarterback, senior Chas Rescigno, showed up.

Senior lineman Jake Christensen believes he is the better quarterback than another senior, Dawson Barber, one of the Scorpions missing in action June 8.

“Chas is the better athlete,” he said. “Dawson’s a little more accurate but can’t play anywhere on defense.”

Dylan Davis — in his first action in four years after tearing his labrum as a freshman — played with the linemen just to be a body.

“All my friends are playing, so I thought I’d, like, jump on the bandwagon,” said Davis, a 6-foot, 205-pound senior who also looks to punt for the Scorpions in the fall. “It feels great, but I’m doing this just to stay in shape.

“I wasn’t on the line my freshman year; I was a wide receiver. I don’t plan on playing on the line.”

Getting back Justin Aleman would help. The senior center and nose guard was sent home after showing up 30 pounds overweight at 320 pounds.

“Blew out his knee and he couldn’t find his brace,” Bradshaw said. “His knees are weak this year.”

Although senior Xavier Turnbull and juniors Branaghan Cunningham and Javier Pacheco assumed control of the setback and wideout positions, Bradshaw had to play two other players out of position in losses to Coconino, Chino Valley, Flagstaff and Williams high schools.

“We lost by just a touchdown,” he said. “We did pretty good, to be honest.”

Still, already “disgusted” by the lack of commitment, Bradshaw was in no mood to hail his three other linemen’s victories in the concurrent Big Man Challenge.

“It is what it is,” Bradshaw said. “These guys deserve what they get.”

Senior Jake Christensen said that he, junior Reaston “Money” McManus, sophomore Dean Vivanco and Davis outsprinted the Williams big men and won most of their weight room, squat, pass rush, shuttle race and sumo competitions before falling in the tug-of-war.

“We went again, and I beat my Flag[staff] kid,” Christensen said. “I’m surprised. They got a lot bigger than last year.”

Christensen, Davis and Rescigno were coming off a team-building camp at 10,000 feet in Frasier, Colo.

“We hiked a peak that was 12,000,” said Christensen, who also bonded with his two teammates building a fort and riding horses with over 440 other high school players at the camp. “We played all our games at elevation.

“Me, Chas and Dylan have kind of been the three amigos since freshman year.”

Christensen is also hoping that he can bring out seniors Randy Rodriguez and Sean Sullivan.

“There’s tons of Sedona kids who say, ‘Yeah, I’ll play,’ then not show up to anything,” he said. “Or they’ll show up the first day, expect to start, then quit.”

Thanks to daily crossfit training in the weight room, Christensen is squatting 420 pounds and is bench-pressing 60 more pounds since the end of last season, he said.

For more photos, please see the Friday, June 10, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.