High school sports are cyclical. Every year, seniors graduate and freshmen find their way into roles of contribution that might be unexpected. Winning droughts and the rebuilding of athletic programs are not uncommon. At Verdugo Hills, certain mountaintops have been unscaled during a 20-year cycle where they’ve been good at times, but just not quite where they wanted to be. The moment might come full circle for the Dons this year, as seniors Jered Smith and Aiden Mejia take the field for their fourth season together. Both found themselves on the varsity roster as freshmen — Smith, even started three varsity games at quarterback after making the move from wide receiver during the summer — and both have grown into leaders who, along with defensive captain Anthony Leon, have essentially taken control of the group.

“That chemistry we got, it’s unbreakable,” senior wide receiver Aiden Mejia said.

Smith and Mejia are two of three senior starters — alongside defensive back and captain Anthony Leon — who have taken varsity reps together for three years running. Asked how they see the season shaping up, with the East Valley League looking like it’s open for any of the eight teams to win, all three answered with real belief, though not identical certainty.

“We obviously didn’t do well in playoffs last year, or the year before either,” Smith said, while also mentioning that the Dons were one win away from a league title in 2024. “I think this is our year.”

Mejia was more measured. “It’s more of, we’re going to compete and see where we get,” he said. “But overall, I’m pretty confident in everything we got.”

Leon landed closer to Smith. “I obviously want to win league, because if we win league we’re doing something right,” he said. “And then I obviously want a ring.”

A senior class three years in the making

In addition to Smith, Leon and Mejia, Verdugo Hills has 10 other seniors on the roster, all of whom have spent some time at the varsity level. The growth should be natural among the group, while the bond between Smith and Mejia stands out. It has been building since before either of them had a varsity role to grow into. Smith, by his own admission, had no idea what he was doing during those three freshman starts. Mejia’s own jump to a bigger role as a sophomore came with its own adjustment — “a different speed, a different mindset to the game,” he said — but he leaned on the same confidence that’s carried him since.

That shared experience shows up on the field now as instinct. “Even when I don’t look at him first and I feel the pressure, I know if I turn it inside, it’ll be totally fine,” Smith said of Mejia. “It’s just so nice having a first option and an emergency option all the time, because I know he’ll make a play every time.”

Mejia feels the same trust running the other way. “I never doubted him, and he never doubts me,” he said. “I always go up and get it for him.”

Leon’s path to the defensive backfield ran through the same kind of position change. He came up as a receiver before shifting to slot DB as a sophomore, and now enters his senior year as a defensive captain — “the whole voice for the defense,” as he put it. He said the game has slowed down considerably since his first varsity reps, when he admitted he wasn’t reading plays so much as guessing. “Now I could read the receivers. It’s a lot easier, just more reps and everything.”

Head coach Sean Jackson sees more in this group than production. “All those guys are over a 3.5 GPA,” Jackson said. “They’re not only great guys, they’re smart guys as well.” He drew a direct comparison to the 2017 Verdugo Hills team that reached the championship game — the last group, he said, with this level of talent and leadership in the same room.

New voices on the sideline

Verdugo’s roster isn’t the only thing that changed heading into this season. Rodrigo Nunez, the former Chavez head coach, joins Jackson’s staff as a key assistant after what he described as an abrupt dismissal from his previous program this spring. He brought line coach Anthony Fino with him.

Despite the circumstances of his exit, Nunez said the transition to Verdugo was seamless — he and Jackson have known each other for well over a decade. “It wasn’t really much of a talk,” Nunez said. “It was kind of a nod, like — we’re doing this.”

Nunez said he expects to make his biggest impact on the offensive and defensive lines, working alongside Verdugo’s existing defensive coordinator. Fino, for his part, framed his role in similar terms: give quarterback Jered Smith more time in the pocket, get more pressure on opposing quarterbacks, and mentor the players into good men off the field as much as good players on it.

“I didn’t even think I’d coach in high school football,” Fino said. “Rodrigo was kind enough to ask me to help him out. I’m honored to help these kids become good young men.”

Jackson said the addition solves a problem that’s followed the program for years. “That group brings something we haven’t had in a long time — toughness, grit,” Jackson said. “That’s the marriage that’s been needed for us. I couldn’t be more ecstatic about what’s about to transpire this year.”

The weight of 20 years

Verdugo Hills hasn’t won a league title in two decades, and hasn’t been back to a championship game since that 2017 team fell to Marshall in the CIF LA City Section Division 3 final — a stretch Jackson refers to as the “anniversary season.” With turnover across the East Valley League and schools such as Poly potentially positioned as the early favorite, Jackson said he’s comfortable in a familiar role.

“With the history of Verdugo, we were always in the middle of the road — we’re hoping everybody takes us as such,” Jackson said. “But we’ve got some tools in the box that can cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams. I like being the underdog. We ain’t too far from them.”

Even so, Jackson made clear that a league title alone won’t fully satisfy him — that’s a bar he’s set for himself more than one he’s placing on his players. Asked directly, he didn’t hedge.

“I think so. I’m gonna be the first to say it,” Jackson said, when asked whether he sees a deep playoff run as the standard this year. Asked about the value of a league banner, he was even more direct: with 12 leagues in the City Section, a league title just makes Verdugo one of a dozen. There are only four division champions after the playoffs, and a championship ring, in his eyes, is the real prize. “I want to be the king of the mountain,” Jackson said. “If you’re a league champion, you’re not the king of the mountain — you’re just in the group trying to get there. I want to be the guy who gets to the top.”

Whatever the season ultimately brings, this is a different Verdugo Hills team than recent ones that have come before it — a senior class that’s grown up together on varsity, a coaching staff built on toughness and mentorship, and a program 20 years removed from its last league title, finally with the pieces in place to see what’s possible.

Jackson put it simply, the same way he says he tells his players every year: “If they don’t see the vision, don’t let them hold the camera.”