Angel Guillen first built his name on the high school level as a do-everything junior varsity player.
One week before he was called up to varsity, the then-sophomore scored five touchdowns either rushing, throwing, catching or defensively. He has continued to make his presence felt over the last two seasons for the Sparks Railroaders and now the train has reached Dayton.
The Dust Devils will have to quiet Guillen's game in order to grab their first league game win since 2007. They won their only league contest last season by default when Yerington forfeited the remainding five games of its season. But when you ask the Dust Devils what their biggest concern is going into tonight's game (7 p.m.), Guillen is hardly among the top of them.
"I'm not really worried about anyone at this point," Dayton linebacker Ricky Bodine said. "I'm not trying to sound cocky or anything like that it's just they're a new team, that's the way you got to look at it every year. They're a new team every year. You can't remember or think about them the same as they were last year."
The same could go for Dayton. Sparks as another team on the long list of last year's opponents who served up big losses to Dayton. The Railroaders took last season's matchup 28-12. This season Dayton is off to a hot 3-0 start, but the coaching staff is quick to remind the team who those victories came against.
"It's nothing," Walker said of the quick of the start. "It's not three loses, but it's not anything with league, has nothing to do with playoffs. So it's 0-0 right now. That's what we're concerned about is making the playoffs this year. We want to make the postseason, so that's what we're working on."
Dayton's start was built off of a bottom-dwelling 4A team (South Tahoe) and two members of the 2A.
The Railroaders beat the Dust Devils 28-12 last season in a loss the coaching staff called embarassing. In order to avoid another lopsided loss, the Dust Devils will have to contain Guillen.
"He's a good, tough kid, (but) we're not just worried about him though," Walker said. "I think their quarterback's just as strong and (really, it's) just keeping them all under wraps ... We plan for the whole thing, not just Angel although he's a big part of their thing. We're staying with what we got (defensively). It's gotten us here. So far, I think our defense has been pretty solid so we're not going to reinvent the wheel too much, we're just going to get after it and play a physical defense."