Daren Jones leans tired over the bar after three hard sets of clean. It’s three months before the season kicks off. The spring football workouts are built to be hard, long, and are required to prepare players for next fall.

“We’re certainly looking forward to the group, and getting everyone together because we definitely have all the ingredients to be a good team,” Sabers, head coach, said.

Returning players remember last season as a disappointment. The Little Hawks finished 2nd in the state after losing in the state championship game to Dowling Catholic 31-38.

“There’s no question we’re disappointed, we had a goal to win a state title, and we couldn’t put the game away in overtime,” Sabers said.

The Little Hawks are expecting 30 of 53 varsity players and 31 sophomores from last season to return. Looking at the roster on paper the Little Hawks will have lots of experience with returning players like Ronald Thompson, Jasper Washington, Ryan Kroeze, Cortez Barfield, Steve Ferentz, Nile Banks, Amos Lavela, and Jeremy Johnson.

Coach Sabers expects the players to be at three summer workouts a week.

“If you work hard, you can accomplish a lot, We like to give our players time off too. We also have a lot of multi-sport athletes, we don’t want to take away from their other sports,” Sabers said.

City High has a spring workout program is called Top of The Line, allowing the athletes that aren’t in winter and spring sports a chance to get faster and stronger. The coaches try to integrate fun games into the drills to make things more fun. Coach Sabers’ son Michael Sabers coaches and instructs athletes of all levels and abilities to get them ready for the summer.

All part of the process to reach the goal of winning a state title in 2011.

“We are good enough to win the state title and be a dominant team because they put in the work to back it up,” Sabers said.