Campbell

CHERRY TWP — Moniteau needed football players and the only available talent pool was the high school student body — so Jeff Campbell dipped into it.

The Warriors head football coach held an open tryout Monday to bolster his injury-ridden roster. The results were 10 additional players joining the squad.

"We have a number of guys injured and our varsity roster was only at 34 to begin the season," Campbell said. "We have a small senior class this year.

"This will be the only year this happens. The rest of our classes coming up have 15 to 18 players each."

Moniteau had 58 players as recently as 2008 and generally have close to 50 varsity players per season.

The Warriors have only five seniors on this year's roster. The 34-player roster does not include a 19-player freshman team.

"I don't want to dip into that," Campbell said.

The coach said he thought about having an open tryout early last week. With injured players sidelined and 15 others sent to play the junior varsity game, Moniteau had 13 varsity players available for practice.

"We couldn't do anything. It was ridiculous," the coach said.

"I recalled turning away a number of guys who wanted to try out for the team two weeks after we started training camp. I told them it was too late. I figured maybe an open tryout might get a few of them back," he added.

Campbell approached team captains Zach Sloan and Jordan Smith about the idea of having open tryouts.

"If it wasn't OK with them, I wasn't going to do it," Campbell said. "The only other option might have been canceling the rest of the junior varsity schedule. That wouldn't be fair to the kids and a lot of parents wouldn't have liked that."

Sloan and Smith presented the idea to the rest of the team, then gave Campbell the go-ahead.

"Everybody on the team was excited when we told them," Sloan said. "They were whooping it up and yelling about getting fresh meat in for practice."

Campbell announced over the school's public address system Friday that anyone wishing to play for the football team should report to the field house after school Monday.

Twelve students reported. Two left after finding out Campbell wasn't going to let any of them suit up for a varsity game for two weeks.

"It had to be that way to be fair to the players who have been here all along," Campbell said.

Two of the new players are seniors. One played for Slippery Rock High two years ago before his family moved into the Moniteau district.

"All of these kids seem to be in pretty good shape," Campbell said. "We had them running hills already and they did fine."

Moniteau hosts Redbank Valley Friday night. Campbell said the new underclassmen will be immediately eligible for junior varsity games.