Portola football team preparing for second varsity season under Coach Peter Abe

Coach Peter Abe leads the Bulldogs into their second varsity season. (Photo: Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)

Portola’s football team, coached by Peter Abe, is ready to begin practice soon for its second varsity season and will have varsity players for the first time.

The Bulldogs first game is Friday, Aug. 23, at Ontario Christian.

“The Bulldogs are excited to keep building on a strong foundation for our developing program as we enter our second year of varsity football at Portola,” Abe said.

“We have a solid group of starters coming back who were able to get a lot of valuable varsity playing experience in 2018. This year, we return the entire group as a more confident/capable/knowledgeable squad, complimented by some fantastic young sophomore talent from last year’s lower levels.

“Our staff is excited to see what our first class of seniors can do, as they’ve invested so much into building our program from scratch in 2016, and have been working admirably to consistently deliver a product our community can be proud of. We are looking forward to an exciting preseason as we hit the road for some lengthy road games (with regard to travel time), competing against a wide variety of offensive and defensive schemes to prep ourselves for the Pacific Coast League.”

Abe said he expects a battle every week in the PCL.

“There is such great competition in our league,” Abe said. “Every game is highly competitive and exciting to watch. You’ve got to be firing on all cylinders with the ability to adapt to some shenanigans come PCL time against such quality coaching staffs who lead teams from a diverse array of CIF divisions in this area. Everyone is surely capable of stealing wins against everyone else in this league.”

The Bulldogs continue to focus on what we can control, The Bulldog Pedigree: taking things one day at a time, one practice, one play at a time to ensure we are putting in the appropriate work to be in the conversation when folks start talking about teams capable of competing for a league championship.  The Bulldogs strive to build strength to endure, as we work to make lasting impressions in 2019.”

2019 Portola football schedule

Home games at Portola

Friday, Aug. 23, at Ontario Christian

Friday, Aug. 30, Santa Rosa Academy (H)

Friday, Sept. 6, at Valley Christian

Friday, Sept. 13, Cerritos (H)

Friday, Sept. 27, at Riverside Prep

Friday, Oct. 4, Beckman (H)

Friday, Oct. 11, at University

Friday, Oct. 18, Northwood (H)

Friday, Oct. 25, Irvine (H)

Friday, Nov. 1, at Woodbridge (Uni)