They come out the side door and walk across the parking lot to the practice field, cleats scraping on the concrete, same as always.
The sound is familiar.
The feeling is different.
Gerry Pacitti is like a lot of senior football players this time of the year. It's late November. The leaves are gone. The ground is cold and damp. The days are short in more ways than one.
"When you are a senior, you know this is it," said Pacitti, a two-way tackle for unbeaten West Deptford, the No. 6 team in The Inquirer Top 10.
West Deptford hosts Buena tonight in a semifinal game of the South Jersey Group 2 tournament. A week from tonight, rival Paulsboro - also unbeaten, and No. 5 in the rankings - comes to town for the annual Thanksgiving weekend game.
If they win tonight, the Eagles will play in the South Jersey Group 2 championship game Dec. 5, either home or at top-seeded Delsea.
That's it.
Three games, tops.
After all those practices - all those summer workouts, all those sessions in the weight room, all those home games and road trips - Pacitti and the rest of his classmates have three games remaining in their high school careers, at most.
"It hits you this time of year," Pacitti said. "I know I personally have been looking forward to this time my whole high school career. We have a lot on our plate right now.
"Everything that we want is right in front of us."
It's a common theme for seniors at this point in their final season: The urgency, the desire to try to squeeze the most from every practice, every film session, every game.
The 6-foot-2, 275-pound Pacitti has been a starter for West Deptford for three years. He was a key member of last year's Group 2 title team as well as the 2006 team that lost the title game to Manasquan.
Pacitti also was a member of the West Deptford junior program in 2003 and 2004, when the high school team won the last two of three consecutive Group 2 titles behind quarterback Anthony Scirrotto, now a captain at Penn State.
"I remember watching those guys and hoping that we could do something like that when we were seniors," said Pacitti, who moved to West Deptford from Maple Shade before seventh grade. "Now it's here."
West Deptford coach Clyde Folsom said Pacitti has quietly emerged as a prominent team leader in the last half of his senior season.
"I think with the big guys sometimes, they don't say much in camp and early in the season because they are playing themselves into shape," Folsom said. "Gerry has developed into an outstanding leader. He's a steady kid, always focused on what's best for the team. But when we hit some adversity, he's the first one to step up."
Pacitti is a top student with a 3.5 grade point average in honors classes. He scored 1,660 on his SATs, including 1,130 in math and verbal. He's considering Ivy League schools such as Cornell and Penn as well as Bucknell and Lehigh.
"I definitely want to keep playing," Pacitti said. "I love the game of football."
Like most seniors, Pacitti senses the end of his scholastic career. It's not exactly a ticking clock he hears when those cleats scrape across the parking lot, as the Eagles walk to practice and back. But he knows time is getting short.
The sun sinks early in late November. Practice ends in the dark. Those first workouts of the late summer seem a long time ago.
Pacitti and the rest of the seniors on the West Deptford team are fortunate. They have a chance to make their last moments their best moments.
"Each class only gets a certain amount of time," Pacitti said. "You only get 10 or so games a year and the weeks go by fast. When you get to this time of the year, you know it's starting to wind down.
"You want to make the most of it."