Outside of an all-star game it’s a rarity to find so much college-bound talent on one football field, but the Air Strike Elite High School Passing Tournament is not your run-of-the-mill seven-on-seven passing league.
Dana Hills hosted the annual event for the seventh straight year on Saturday, welcoming 15 other teams to compete for the 2013 Air Strike title and giving the Dolphins a chance to see where their passing attack stands against some of Southern California’s perennial powers.
“Great talent out here today, lot of good high school athletes that will soon be playing on Saturdays,” said Rusinkovich, whose invitees for the tournament included three reigning CIF division champions and 11 teams that finished in the top 50 of MaxPreps.com’s state rankings last year. “This was exciting for the kids to come out and compete having all these talented schools here. It’s a great event to see guys go after it.”
Mater Dei of Santa Ana and Chaminade, runners-up in the Pac-5 and Western Divisions, respectively, grinded it out in the championship game with the Monarchs prevailing, 14-13.
Dana Hills and Sea View League rival San Juan Hills were the only South County squads competing and two of six teams from Orange County in a group that included teams from the Los Angeles City Section to the San Diego Section and everywhere in between. The Dolphins and Stallions both bowed out in the first round of bracket play after each going 0-3 in pool play.
With the absence of pads, helmets or linemen and no rushing plays allowed, the tournament was but a small taste of what real football will look and feel like in the fall. But Rusinkovich said it provided the Dolphins with a valuable opportunity to get an early gauge of their capabilities.
“It’s only passing league so, realistically, it has no impact on what you do once you get into fall, but it’s great to have this opportunity to come out and compete and continue to work on stuff you’ve been working on during the spring,” Rusinkovich said. “We’re continuing to get better and better. We’ve still got a lot of room to improve, but at the same time we’re preparing ourselves to peak once we get to the fall season.”
An event on the scale of Air Strike is not without its logistical hurdles. Beginning at 9 a.m. the tournament had two games with officiating crews going simultaneously on not just the stadium field, but also two auxiliary fields set up around the campus. All teams played at least four games, with the finalists playing a total of seven times.
“A lot of work goes into this,” Rusinkovich said. “It’s a lot of time, but the end product is something Dana Hills and Southern California can really be proud of to kind of kick start the passing league season.”
