Travion Boykins and Uriah Trailer ready to help Damien football; In other news, West Covina’s Solomon out against Loyola, and reaction from Covina and Diamond Bar’s losses

Damien’s Dynamic Duo: Travion Boykins and Uriah Trailer have specific roles on the Damien High School football team. They’re supposed to make big plays on offense while making sure they don’t give up any on defense. Their common denominator is speed, something that was notably missing from the Spartans last season. “When we found out we were going here, we started watching all the YouTube videos and saw all the big plays they got beat on (last year),” Trailer said. “They didn’t tackle very well and their corners weren’t very fast.

West Covina’s Solomon to miss Loyola: West Covina High School’s football team will be without running back/defensive back Chris Solomon this Friday night when the Bulldogs take on Loyola at L.A. Valley College.
Solomon, the reigning Tribune Player of the Year, left Saturday’s win over Covina in the first half one play after his ankle rolled during a carry. Bulldogs coach Mike Maggiore said Solomon injured himself after leaping over a tackler and getting caught in a pile.

More notes from Tolegian on Covina, Diamond Bar…
Colts ready to go again
Covina came out of Saturday’s battle with West Covina relatively unscathed. “We’re fine,” Covina coach Darryl Thomas said Tuesday. “Just bumps and bruises. We were tired, but we’re good.” After watching film of the game, two areas stood out to Thomas – Covina’s lack of a ground game on offense, and the defense’s inability to get off the field on third down. “After the first game, you look at the film and see the things you need to improve,” Thomas said. “We definitely need to improve the running game; we have to run the football, and that’s something we’re looking to do.”
Colts running back Gevontray Ainsworth was held under 40 yards against West Covina. Covina visits Gladstone on Friday night at Citrus College. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
“We’re still winless,” Thomas said. “The 2011 team, with all this hype, we still don’t have a victory.”
Brahmas look for answers
After a summer of hype, Diamond Bar laid an egg in its season-opening 32-23 loss to Ayala. “We came out awful. Awful.” Diamond Bar coach Ryan Maine said. “Everything went wrong for us.” Indeed. The Brahmas team bus got stuck in traffic due to a car accident and the team was 20 minutes late. Then the coaching staff’s headsets stopped working. And that speaks nothing about what took place on the field: an interception on the first possession, a bad snap for a safety and enough breakdowns to lead to an early hole. “Our film session on Saturday, you could hear a pin drop,” Maine said. “You take away our mistakes and it probably would have been a great game.”
It won’t get easier for Diamond Bar this week. The Brahmas take on a Wilson team that’s also 0-1 and has plenty of good excuses after blowing a big lead to Bosco Tech.
“We watched them on film and they have some very talented linemen,” Maine said of the Wildcats. “It’s going to be a true test on how we want to stop the run game. I don’t think it’s a must win until we get to league, but morale-wise, we can’t come out like we did against Ayala.”

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