Football preview: new weight room, lineup and attitude for Blue Waves

“This is the first time the district paid for a piece of weight equipment in my 17 years here,” said a still-in-shock Leif Shay, head football coach at Riverhead, as he walked around his new state-of-the-art weight room.

Up until this point, Shay says, every other piece of equipment found in the old weight room was paid for by the football program through fundraising.

“Whenever possible, our community comes through,” he said. “Whenever we’ve asked, they’ve given. That’s the beauty of this community.”

“We have the best weight room in Suffolk County,” Shay confidently proclaimed.

Newly furnished with up-to-date machines, benches and weights, the weight room has moved across the from the east side of Riverhead High School to the west side, next to the locker rooms.

“And let me tell you,” Shay said. “It gets these kids fired up! You should see these kids. They come in and they work. I wish the community could see how deserving they are to have a room like this.”

Riverhead landed the No. 1 seed in preseason voting, a seed that Shay believes is more or less based on the past two years.

“We’re really like a two or three seed but if we’re going to be two or three, we might as well be one,” he said. “We’ll take it, we’ll play the harder schedule, we’re going to play everyone anyway.”

The Blue Waves made team history last year by being the first football team to win back-to-back Suffolk County championships for Riverhead.

So this year it’s obviously Long Island Championship or bust, right?

“You can’t live off what you did in the past,” Shay said. “This is a totally different year, totally different schedule, different kids, nothing’s the same. It’s going to be a battle from day one.”

With a lot of fresh faces vying for starting positions, a few competitions will be in play this preseason.

Wide Receiver is wide open.

“There’s no clear cut guy,” Shay said. “And that’s rare for us, to not have a stud guy out there. So that’s going to be a bit of a challenge.”

A battle has emerged at the quarterback position with Kenny Simco and incoming junior Sharron Trent. Simco started a handful of games in place of Cody Smith last year while Trent starred on the JV team.

“Trent’s doing a tremendous job and he’s just a young kid,” Shay said. “He made it into a competition.”

With the departure of safety Jaron Greenidge, who graduated last summer and is now playing lacrosse for Brevard College, the team’s secondary needs revamping, Shay said.

Speaking of Greenidge, Jaron’s brother Ethan, standing at 6’5, 320 pounds, will head a deep offensive line this year.

“We have a ton of kids returning on the line,” Shay said. “I think our line’s going to be a strength for us. Over the years we’ve gotten bigger, better and stronger kids and we have about ten guys who could start for us this year so that’s always a plus.”

In years past, the offensive line was always a makeshift process for the Blue Waves, but when a group of lineman commit to excellence it makes the process that much easier.

“It just seems like this year we had a bunch of kids who really killed themselves in the weight room and it’s showing,” Shay said.

Raheem Brown returns at middle linebacker and fullback this year.  Brown made a name for himself last year with his bruising hits delivered game by game. He’s a senior leader who almost certainly will be named captain before the season starts. He might also see some time at running back, Shay said.

Ryun Moore should be the starter at running back this year, who enters his junior year, after performing off the charts in place of Jeremiah Cheatom whenever his number was called.  He’ll still see some competition for the position with RJ Foster and William Mitchell battling for carries. Mitchell is a newcomer to the Blue Waves who impressed Shay thus far with a solid showing at camp.

Though many return, no spot is guaranteed. The Blue Waves will have their annual blue-white scrimmage this Saturday which will allow the coaches to see some tape and create a depth chart based on game performance.

The theme this year is: “Do it or don’t, we’ve got places to be.”

“It’s either the kids are going to be on board and do it our way or we’re going to go on without them,” Shay said. “And the kids have really bought into it.”

Because of the ongoing construction at Riverhead High School, the surrounding practice fields collect dust on a daily basis.  So, to help the program, Riverhead and Jamesport fire departments come before practices to wet down the fields.

“That doesn’t happen in every community,” Shay said. “That is special to Riverhead. It’s a special place to raise your kids. It really is.”