Roosters working hard, preparing for 2026 season

By Jimmy Gillispie

PLEASANT HILL — With less than two weeks until the 2026 season officially kicks off, the Roosters are wrapping up their summer workouts in Branson this week.

They finished their final days of team camp at Eklund Field on Tuesday. It had been more than a week of camp, in addition to the weeks of June workouts and camp.

“We are just trying to continue to get better each and every day,” Pleasant Hill coach Justin Hamilton said. “I know everybody thinks that's cliché, but we are doing some new things that require a lot of timing and a lot of work offensively. We are just trying to build and not regress right now. That’s kind of our goal, and that’s what our mantra has been as we make this transition. Our kids are doing a really good job.

“Sometimes with high school kids, they lose focus easily, but our kids have been focused each and every day,” Hamilton said. “I’m pretty pleased with that.”

Defensively, the Roosters haven’t changed much this offseason, according to Hamilton. He said the defense is ahead of the offense, which is quite common for this time of the year. 

Offensively, Pleasant Hill is retooling its system. The Roosters altered their offense late last year from a hurry-up spread offense to a much slower offense led by its ground attack.

Hamilton and his coaches are once again altering the offense heading into the 2026 season. They have been working on it since June, but they have worked to improve it during the past seven camp days.

“I do think it fits our personnel better. Also, football is always evolving and changing, and it comes full circle again,” Hamilton said. “We kind of changed our offense, the last four games of last year, but that wasn’t a system. We have a system now. We had some success with it. Also, defenses have evolved to stop the spread offense, so now we have to evolve in how we are going to attack defenses. I think it’s a combination of both. It fits what we want to do, and we have some big running backs, as well.

“I am telling you if we were running the same off since we've ran the past six years, it would probably be a lot smoother during the summer,” Hamilton added. “We have some young guys getting some reps, and that’s always part of it. I think it just compounds it when we are doing something new.”

The Roosters have had 110 players at camp this month. They are fairly balanced as far as players per class. 

Now, those players have made the trek to Branson for the final team camp of the summer. At the camp, teams will have five 20-minute scrimmages, and the junior varsity teams will also see field time.

Hamilton said Pleasant Hill will face Class 5 and 6 schools, as well as some its own size at the Branson camp.

“It’s nice to see some other schools, and the majority of schools we see down there we will never see again,” Hamilton said. “That’s always fun for us, as well. It’s also a competitive environment.

“We are going to make mistakes, but I tell our kids it doesn’t matter because we are not trying to win in July,” he added. “Our goal is to go down there and continue to do what we do – get better.”