High School Football: Frye catches on with South

On the third day of practice, Elliott Frye heard the kind of news that would make any lineman happy. There is a chance the former Newport Harbor High center might catch a pass or two in the Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game at Orange Coast College on July 8.

“I’m not sure yet, but they might have me slide over [and play] a little tight end,” Frye said. “We were talking about it at practice [last week at Laguna Hills High]. I haven’t tried it. I think they might be just doing it for bodies. We might not have the right personnel, but who knows? We haven’t practiced it at all. [Coach Mike Maceranka] just mentioned it.”

Frye said he would line up wherever Maceranka wants him to for the South. Maceranka, who is also the coach at Laguna Hills, is the same person who called Frye in late May and told him he needed him for the OC All-Star Game.

Frye, who was nominated for the game, wasn’t originally selected to play.

“I was just hanging out in my room, and he called me and said, ‘Hey, we got spots open. I want you to play,’” Frye said. “I was all about [playing].”

Frye couldn’t pass up the chance to join a fellow Newport Harbor offensive lineman, Max Spruill, in the 57th edition of the OC All-Star Game.

The two recent graduates are now representing the Sailors one last time, and Frye said the workouts leading up the game are beneficial to his and Spruill’s future. Both are coming out for the OCC football team in the summer. Practice starts the day after the Fourth of July, three days before the OC All-Star Game.

“This is a good way to sort of get back in shape a little bit right before [OCC practices],” said Frye, a 6-foot-2, 220-pounder.

Frye expects to play more defensive end than tight end in the OC All-Star Game. The position is one at which Frye started for the first time as a senior, and at which he hopes to play next fall for the Pirates.

During his sophomore and junior seasons with Newport Harbor, Frye only started on offense, as the center. He went both ways last year; anything to help Coach Jeff Brinkley’s Sailors, who finished 2-3 in the Sunset League, one game away from earning a berth into the CIF Southern Section West Valley Division playoffs.

“Coach Brinkley really just taught me that if you follow a [football] system to the T, then you’re going to be successful, no matter how athletic you are, or how unathletic you are,” Frye said. “If you do the work and are always correcting your form and everything, then you’re going to successful on the field.”

Frye got a clear picture of what Brinkley meant when the Sailors called Frye up as a freshman for the 2012 playoffs.

“I was pretty much just a practice dummy,” Frye said. “I just got banged around by all the big guys, but it was cool to see how [varsity] all worked as a young guy.”

The next three years, Frye made varsity and he anchored the offensive line. He made the All-Sunset League first team and the Daily Pilot Newport-Mesa Dream Team as a senior. Those are honors Frye credits to the ballcarrier for whom he was creating holes last season.

“Cole Kinder’s just a beast,” Frye said of the tailback who rushed for 1,317 yards and nine touchdowns as a junior last season. “He makes the offensive line look good. I remember the second game of the year [at Pico Rivera El Rancho], and we didn’t, as an offensive line, block … as well as we should have and he still ran for [304] yards. We rushed for a crazy amount of yards, even though we didn’t block that well. That’s just the kind of back he is.”