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MONAHANS, Texas (KOSA) - High school football practices began on Monday, and Monahans wasted no time, starting as soon as the clock struck midnight.

“They enjoy doing it, so we keep doing it,” Head Coach Fred Staugh said. “That’s what the players want, and they rarely get to tell me what they want. So this is one of those cases where we say ‘Sure, let’s do it’.”

Monahans is coming off it’s best season in over a decade, with the Loboes going 10-4, and playing for the regional championship.

“When you look back at it, you’re mired in an 0-3 start, everybody’s grumpy,” Staugh said, remembering last season. “And then we won 10 in a row. You look up and you’re in the 4th round of the playoffs playing in December. It was really special for us.”

Quarterback Cheno Navarrette accounted for 3500 yards of offense and scored 43 touchdowns to lead that magical run. He’s back for his 4th year as the starter.

“It’s been a blessing to play this long,” Navarrette said. “And to play with so many friends and so many different teams.”

“It’s great to have someone like Cheno on the team,” senior linebacker David Carrasco said. “He’s a great leader. He keeps us rallied up. And he’s good.”

“You never know where he’s gonna go,” junior lineman Nathan Marquez said. “He takes care of us, and we do our best to take care of him.”

Monahans brings back a deep receiver group, and Marquez already has 27 starts in his first two years on the offensive line.

“Honestly, offensively we could come out and run all the stuff we ran last year, right now without installing it,” Staugh said.

“I think all of our wide receivers are tough,” Navarrette said. “Nathan Wessels, Ben Cordova, our Y, David Carrasco. Our H’s, Malachi and A.J. I think we’ll be good.”

On defense, fast linebackers Carrasco and Alex Palmateer each had over 130 tackles last season.

“We’re at a level where we can start where we left of last year,” Carrasco said.

Coach Staugh said this team had the best offseason of any group in his five years at Monahans.

“We want to go 10-0,” he added. “We want to win a district championship. We want to win playoff games. We want to play in December again. But we won’t focus on that. We’ll focus on us and being better one rep at a time.”

Monahans opens the season at home on Friday August 25 against Shallowater.