Written by Dave Schabell of bmustangs.com.
The 2021 Mustangs opened the season after losing 7 quality seniors including Trevor Schadler, who held two major school records – Most TD in a Career – 26, and Most Rushing Touchdowns in a season – 14, as well as being our second leading rusher all-time – 1,794 yards. There were no major expectations of this 2021 team, which would return quarterback Jacob Leicht for his third year under center. Jed Martin stepped in to attempt to fill the shoes of Trevor Schadler in the backfield. Both would record over 1,000 yards on the ground.
Jacob Leicht and Coach Paul Wiggins would later be named the District 5 Player and Coach of the Year. Jed Martin would be named All-State Running Back – Honorable Mention.
Coach Paul Wiggins readily admits that he had merely hoped for a winning season.
An opening night win at home versus Dayton was a pleasant surprise, since there was a lot of buzz about Jamie Herbst’s team.
Game two at Newport started out disastrously with Newport scoring on a turnover, and then pinning us back at our own 1 yard line. Somehow the Mustangs overcame the adversity, orchestrated several long offensive drives and prevailed 21-7. What became quite obvious was that we had an exceptional defensive unit that would not be scored on in our first four games. On the regular season and district playoffs our defense allowed only 54 points, many of those the result of turnovers.
Lopsided wins over Bellevue and Holy Cross gave us a 4-0 record coming into the Lloyd game. Lloyd is a 2A opponent new to the Brossart schedule. The Mustangs managed a 13-8 win, and thoughts began turn to an undefeated regular season.
The rest is history, we swept our remaining regular season games, and then swept our district opponents in the post-season.
Here we are again, graduating eleven productive seniors, including our three-year quarterback, Jacob Leicht, who, along with Jed Martin are two 1,000 yard ground-gainers that walked down the down the aisle and picked up a diploma.
Had I not seen our JV and Colts teams in action, nor learned some valuable history lessons along the way, I might expect that proverbial step-back this year that we appeared destined to take, as we approached the 2021 Football season. Our schedule is a mirror image of the ‘21 schedule. We will scrimmage Sayre on August 12th in Lexington. Our team has just returned home from a team-building trip to the Smokey Mountains that had been scheduled back in 2020, prior to the Covid Pandemic.
Our cupboard is certainly not bare. There are two worthy candidates waiting in the wings to fill the shoes of Quarterback, Jacob Leicht –Senior Mason Meyer and Sophomore Keegan Gulley. Meyer filled in for Jacob in the Bellevue game when Jake was unavailable, and Gulley served as quarterback in all four JV games and did a masterful job in doing so. Gulley appears to be the leading candidate at this juncture. Leicht himself took over at the quarterback position as a sophomore, and Meyer might be best served in another productive position moving forward. While there are always going to growing pains in any transition of power, the quarterback position should not be a major cause for concern.
Austin Schadler and Evan Orth are certainly capable of forming two sections of a backfield “jumbo package” and Orth will again be called upon to serve as our short yard specialist, but the bigger question is, who becomes our breakaway threat in the backfield, replacing Jed. Perhaps that question was answered earlier, or maybe, as when Trevor Schadler and Jacob Leicht teamed up, so too might we see a tandem of Gulley and Meyer. Sheer speculation!
Any number of candidates appear poised to compete for the wide receiver slots. Should Meyer remain in that capacity, he would certainly anchor one of those spots, and I would have to tab Sam Willike as another. Perhaps Luke Schroeder might step up and earn consideration. David Govan’s versatility and “wide-body” status will be missed. In the concerns category should be listed the lack of “wide-bodies.”
In the grand scheme of things, our bigger concern might be who replaces linemen Thomas Sayers, Kaleb Lukes, The Reis twins, and Adam Bezold. Austin Schadler can certainly step in and fill one of those spots, and Nate Heck, who filled in capably for Brad Reis for a time, has shown that he is ready for a lineman’s spot. Henry Goering appears to be the heir apparent to the center position, but is no match for the size and girth that Sayers brought to the table. Evan Orth, Derek Martin and Eli Twehues have the credentials to lead the defense. Twehues was perhaps our top defender in the late stages of the season.
Despite losing the 11 Seniors to graduation, our numbers are up from 37 a year ago to 49 this season. 13-Seniors, 9-Juniors, 13-Sophomores, and 14-Freshmen.
We also field a Colts program made up of junior high aged players, and have seven JV games scheduled for the upcoming season.
Our annual Green-White Night will take place Friday evening, August 5th beginning at 6:30pm at the MAC. Our opening game will take place at Dayton on Friday, evening August 19th at 7:00pm. This team was picked to finish third in our district by Cats Pause. This is not sitting well with this team, who will accept it as a challenge to repeat as District Champs.
You must be logged in to post a comment.