Fullerton’s football team with Coach Pete Karavedas. (Photos courtesy Fullerton athletics).
Fullerton High School football players and coaches have already accomplished a lot, reaching the CIF Division 8 playoffs after the team finished 0-10 last year.
Under first year coach Pete Karavedas who led Sunny Hills to a CIF Division 8 title in 2019 before stepping aside from coaching and moving into an administrative role, the Indians posted an 8-2 overall record and went 4-1 to finish second in the Lambda League.
Fourth-seeded Fullerton hosts La Quinta from La Quinta (7-3) Thursday night in the opening round. The Indians, appearing in the CIF playoffs for the first time since 2019, will be looking for the program’s first playoff win since 2017.
“It was a clean slate, we didn’t want to dwell on anything that happened in the past, it was moving forward,” Karavedas said this week. “A lot of the kids were still reeling from a tough year. That was our mantra. Credit to the kids, right away they were committed and dialed in, especially our seniors. A lot of the guys who are being leaders for us were committed right away and they did everything we told them.
“I didn’t expect that. I expected a little more pushback, but it was like ‘Yes sir, no sir, thank you coach.’ Our whole staff was just blown away by it. That makes coaching really fun and easy when you have great kids.”
Karavedas said there weren’t a lot of players returning to the team.
“There were a couple of linemen but we knew that the JV and freshmen had been strong,” the coach said. “The JV last year went 8-2, and the freshmen went 10-0, so we knew there was talent in the program and this year our JV went 9-1 and our freshmen went 10-0 again. We knew having coached in this district and been around in this town for a while, I know this is the place where the football players want to come.
“You have a beautiful stadium right in the heart of the city with tradition the school has been around since 1893, it should be a football power. On defense we only start two or three seniors depending on the package and depending on the night we might start three sophomores on defense and two or three sophomores on offense, so we knew we were going to be young this year, but we knew there was young talent, so we were excited about that.”
Fullerton has been led on offense by Caden Wise, Cyrus Aviles, quarterback Sergio Andrade and center David Salgado.
“Caden is so fast that once he gets loose, he does things that you can’t coach,” Karavedas said. “He’s so explosive, we saw it in game one, he scored a touchdown receiving, rushing and on punt return. I can’t take credit for most of his success. We started using him on defense after we lost to Beckman, he played defense all year last year, we were trying to save him for offense but we needed him on defense and he got an interception in each of the first two games that he played defense.
“Cyrus started last year as a sophomore, he’s a strong kid, he’s not very tall. Cyrus is an all-around football player so we’ve had him on coverage, we’ve got him rushing the passer, we’ve had him play the run, we’ve handed him the ball, we’ve thrown him the ball. He’s probably our hardest working kid in the weight room. He does anything we tell him, and we love him, we’re so fired up, we get to have him next year too.”
Andrade, the quarterback, started for the JV team last year.
“I knew he threw a pretty catchable ball and was pretty accurate with the football, so we liked that,” Karavedas said. “He’s just an incredible person and a great kid. The evidence of that is he had a horrible game early on against Sunny Hills, he turned it over four times with two fumbles and two picks and for three and a half quarters, it had been a rough night.
“But then he leads us on final drive, four for four and winning touchdown pass, just ice in his veins, he doesn’t let the adversity get him off his game or let the adversity stop him.”
Wilson Aldana and Nate Veja lead the Indians’ defense.
“Wilson we knew was a guy we had coming back, he had a lot of bad habits we needed to fix but we knew he was willing to learn and willng to work and credit to Dave Wilde, our inside linebacker coach who worked tirelessly with Wilson, and he’s turned out to be a good player for us,” Karavedas said.
Veja, a sophomore, was an impact player on the freshman team last year.
“He was at cornerback the first half of the year,” Karavedas said. “And then we had an injury and we realized we needed to get him around the football more. We moved him to safety the last few games and it’s completely changed our defense. He’s a really big mpact guy for us and is going to be really good the next two years.”
With the success the team has had, there’s been plenty of excitement on campus.
“Everyone is fired up, haven’t been to the playoffs since before COVID, haven’t won a playoff game since 2017, so everybody is real hopeful,” Karavedas said. “When football is good, it really spreads to the rest of the campus. It’s our job as players and coaches to try to keep that going because we don’t want to just represent our team, we want to represent our whole school and our whole community.”
Once again, Karavedas will be able to share Thursday’s game experience with his father, Nick, who coaches the defensive backs and was with him during Sunny Hills CIF title run.
“What amazing memories we will have together and my kids get to have of going to the games and watching dad and popa coach together, I feel very, very lucky to get those memories,” he said.
Pete Karavedas said his return to coaching has been memorable.
“Administration was fun, but there’s nothing like coaching high school football,” he said. “I have zero doubts or zero regrets about the decision I made.”
Next round
The winner of the La Quinta vs. Fullerton game moves on to the second round to face the winner of the Beckman vs. La Mirada winner. Fullerton would be the visiting team if it wins Thursday. Beckman, the league champion, handed Fullerton its only league loss this year 34-14.
For full view, click on the photo:
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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