As the 2025 fall football season is underway, senior Edwin Martinez looks to get on the right foot. Harrisonburg has aspirations to outperform their 0-10 record from last season. Martinez shares how the team views this new year compared to last year.
“You know, last year, we went into every game thinking like, dang, like, let’s try not to get embarrassed out there, but now we have a sense of winning. Every game is a winnable game now with the weaker schedule and [with] people getting better,” Martinez said
Martinez is involved in every play. He calls the plays, takes the snap and throws the ball. Martinez has been leading the way on the field and also in the classroom.
“It’s really hard to keep everybody wanting to come to practice. [Because] you know, because football games, yes they’re won on the field, but they also start in practice and school. If somebody’s not doing their assignments, they’re not going to be able to play. So I feel like keeping people accountable, that’s a really big thing that I’ve been trying to do this year,” Martinez said
Martinez expects the Blue Streaks to take a big step in the right direction this year compared to last.
“I feel like it’s going to be a really rough start. People that didn’t really get significant playing time are getting it [this year], but they’re getting better. It takes live reps to get better at anything. So definitely I think we’re going to have a much better year than we did last year, you know that’s the plan. That’s always the plan,” Martinez said
Sophomore Abrahm Wenger, a wide receiver on the Harrisonburg High School JV team, thinks that the JV team will take a big step up from last year.
“Its coming out of a rough season, [but] this year people want to be here. People want to come out and help the team out. We played our first game a couple Thursdays ago and when we were watching the film, we saw that all the players wanted to make plays, and they were trying out there. That’s a big difference from last season. And even though our score shows different, it’s probably going to be a much better season,” Wenger said
Harrisonburg was able to field a JV team this year. Drew Bowman, head coach of the JV team expresses how the veterans on the team have picked up the younger guys right away. The JV and varsity teams practice together every day so it is a great way for the older veterans to lead the way for the younger people.
“We got some older guys on the team and they’ve worked really hard throughout their career. And them showing some leadership and taking some younger guys under their wing when you have a young group of guys that hasn’t played much football it’s really important for the older guys to help them out and show them the way, even if it’s not a coach doing it, it’s an older guy, a veteran, a senior that’s leading,” Bowman said
Bowman explains how Martinez has shown leadership from a coaching viewpoint.
“Edwin’s shown a lot of extreme leadership skills. I mean he was a young guy too and so he understands the process and what it takes to get to that level and he’s trying to help the younger guys get better each day and show them the Blue Streak way and how we want things to be run. And he’s done a good job of that so far,” Bowman said
