Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, Nick Cabico: Muscling up

Barry Faulkner

To this point, Nick Cabico’s prep football career has featured more

misses than hits. But, in his case, or any other ball carrier for that

matter, this is good news.

This season, however, the shifty Costa Mesa High wingback has more

than one method of leaving would-be tacklers strewn in his wake.

“If you can run around a guy, it’s a lot easier,” said the senior

standout, who made his varsity debut as a freshman and earned second-team

All-Pacific Coast League honors last fall. “But it feels good to put

someone on the ground.”

Most of last season, Cabico enlisted gravity as a trusted ally,

unleashing a repertoire of moves that often forced frustrated defenders

to topple without contact.

This year, having added nearly 10 pounds of muscle in the weight room

and also having improved his speed, Cabico said he is more confident

about attacking tacklers with grit, as well as guile.

“I didn’t believe I was physically ready to (seek out collisions) last

year,” Cabico said. “But (first-year) strength coach) Scott Briscol

pointed me in the right direction in the weight room and I feel a lot

stronger. I think I can be a big part of this team.”

The Daily Pilot Player of the Week was just that in Friday’s 39-13

season-opening win over Saddleback. He carried 13 times for 117 yards (a

9-yard average), including an 8-yard touchdown, and also caught two

passes for touchdowns of 9 and 18 yards. He returned two kickoffs and one

punt for a combined 50 yards to finish with 195 all-purpose yards, while

also starting and playing most of the night at cornerback.

It was a familiar refrain for Cabico against Saddleback, which saw him

accumulate 304 all-purpose yards in last year’s 48-23 Mustangs’ triumph.

Despite taking himself out to rest on frequent occasions last year

when the Mustangs had the ball, Cabico gained 531 yards rushing and 465

more on 17 receptions. He scored 10 touchdowns and shared the team lead

with three interceptions.

This year, he plans to take his breaks on defense.

This appears to be fine with Dave Perkins, Mesa’s first-year coach,

who looks forward to exploiting Cabico’s versatility in the combined wing

T and fly offensive scheme.

“You can do a lot of things with him,” said Perkins, who calls the

Mustangs’ plays. “You can give him the ball on the sweep, you can throw

it to him underneath, and he can beat (defensive backs) deep. If he has

to, he can also stick the ball up in the middle.”

Perkins has also been impressed by Cabico’s work ethic.

“He’s very deserving of the success he has, because he works very hard

in everything he does,” Perkins said. “Over the summer, he was in the

weight room two hours a day, he was running two miles a day and he also

ran a lot of sprints. Every conditioning drill we’ve done this year, Nick

has been the first guy to finish.”

A former youth football standout, the 5-foot-8, 148-pound Cabico matured physically at an early age. That physical prowess allowed him, he

recalled, to run over defenders, before reaching high school.

But, as tacklers became bigger and stronger, Cabico focused on

subtleties such as changing speeds, setting up blocks and changing

direction to be able to avoid getting crunched. He said the season he

spent on the Mater Dei sophomore team enabled him to learn much in this

area from veteran varsity tailback Junior Palacios.

“I watched Junior in drills,” Cabico said. “I watched his feet and

tried to work on my quickness. By the time I got back to Mesa, I was

using my hips a little more, trying to break defenders down. I never used

that stuff in Pop Warner.”