ESPN RISE

A four-year member of the Northwest (Germantown, Md.) varsity football team, Ali Tolson has been on teams that played in the state semifinals and teams that missed the playoffs. He has already played under two different head coaches and will see a new one this season.

Despite the roller-coaster ride, the 6-foot-2, 210-pound junior has been one of the pillars of a Northwest program that looks to build upon last season's 6-5 record.

In 2006, Northwest was two years removed from a Class 3A state championship and Tolson was a freshman on the varsity football team. Under then-head coach Randy Trivers, the Jaguars went 12-1 and reached the Class 4A state semifinals against Sherwood (Sandy Spring, Md.).

Since then, Northwest has won only 11 games and will have its third head coach in four years, but Tolson remembers the lessons he learned from that 2006 team.

"Northwest is a respectable program in MoCo [Montgomery County] so it's been kind of hard [the last two seasons]. I came in my freshman year at 12-1 so I expected it to be a very good team my whole high school career," Tolson said. "The starters from then took me under their wing which allowed me to work harder and to work like them to try and achieve and accomplish what they did in 2006. … The last two seasons allowed us to work hard for next year to get our respect back up and get Northwest back on the map."

After the 2006 season, Trivers took a coaching job at Syracuse University and was replaced by offensive coordinator Andrew Fields. After the 2008 season, Fields resigned and has been replaced by former Rockville head coach Mark Maradei.

One of the Jaguars captains, Tolson has already shown Maradei the type of player he can be -- even though the team has yet to practice any actual football.

"I've watched him attack weights and [seen] the way he attacks conditioning and skill work. He's an aggressive kid," Maradei said. "I think the kids look at him and respect him. Not only because he's a returning starter, but because of the example he sets. I think he's pulled some of the kids that were nonfactors last year up, so we can visualize them as factors this year. Those are positive things that I like to see."

Tolson made 26 tackles on a team that finished 6-5 and made the Class 4A region semifinals last season.

Tolson will see time at offensive guard, offensive tackle, defensive end and tight end.

"I'm like an athletic-type defensive player," Tolson said when asked to describe his playing style. "I'm not one of those that will run through people. I'll use my speed and my quickness and my intelligence to beat my opponent."

Tolson has been drawing Division I college recruiting interest. He has attended the University of Maryland's junior pro day and received invitations to the Terrapins' junior day. He has also received invitations to Illinois' and Temple's one-day camps and expects to attend several more camps over the summer.

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Mike Loveday covers high school sports for ESPNRISE.com. Mike can be reached at Michael.Loveday@espn.com