Dan Friedman still hears from coaching peers about it more than nine months later.

Around the time the calendar flipped to 2025, it no longer mattered. Not quite half of the 2024 team was returning, determined to find a way to game 11.

Deer Valley was held up as the case study for a 24-team bracket in the 58-team 4A Conference. The irony is, the Skyhawks will have to make the expanded playoffs with a much less experienced team playing a far tougher schedule.

“The returning kids took it really hard and worked their tails off,” Friedman said. “My message to the kids was to focus on the now.”

Suffice to say, this small senior class of 13 players did not have to reach to find motivation.

In case the returning players needed something else to point to, there’s the mid-summer transfer of se

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