School: Pleasant Plains
Mascot: Cardinals
Head Coach: John Hambelton
Years at School: 4 years as head coach (18-26), 1 year as assistant
Overall Record: 27-52
Assistant Coaches: Brett Keyes, Toby Gleave, Conner Haltom, Justin Saathoff
Last Year’s Conference Record: 4-5
Last Year’s Overall Record: 4-5
Postseason: N/A
School State Championships: 0
School Conference Championships: 0
Biggest Rival Game Every Year: New Berlin (The Battle For Grant’s Saber)
Number of returning letterman: 19
Number of returning starters: 13
Offense: 7
Defense: 6
Top Returnees from 2022
Offensive:
Danny Skelton (QB)
Carter Durako (TE)
Carter Streck (TE)
Cooper Schallenberg (WR)
Charlie Severino (WR)
Brady Kaufmann (OL)
Brock Marshall (OL)
Eli McAfee (OL)
Patrick Fields (OL)
Defensive:
Carter Streck (LB)
Michael Carter (LB)
Isaiah Babington (CB)
Danny Skelton (S)
Steel Merriman (LB)
Josh Quandt (LB)
Who are the newcomers we should know about and why?
No one has had a better off-season, and wanted to improve his play more than Mitchell Coffey. We return four out of five offensive linemen, and Mitchell has worked so hard that he has gone from a JV player last year, not playing much on Friday nights, to what looks like one of our top offensive lineman.
Another newcomer isn’t really a newcomer, but his season was ended before our first game, and that is Michael Carter. He is one of the better tacklers I have coached, and we need a big year out of him especially defensively.
Lastly, I would mention our two main guys competing for running back reps, and they are Colton Boon, and Parker Denney. We definitely need/expect one of them to step up and carry the load for us in the backfield.
Head Coach says: We have to find a way to close out some games. We lost three games to playoff teams where we were absolutely in them going into the 4th quarter. I think we really found some things offensively last year, and the kids have totally bought into what we are doing there, so we are running with it. We return a four-year quarterback who can play anywhere. We got pretty creative last year with him, and he will be an exciting player. I would expect Charlie Severino to have a breakout year as we move him around as well. We really found something last year when we had Carter Durako, and Carter Streck out on the field at the same time. It’s been a fun off-season looking at ways to get even more production out of them. We look for Cooper Schallenberg to have more production, and make more big plays when we need one to happen as last year was his first year, and he did a nice job starting every game.
As for an outlook, and closing out some of those tight games, we have to improve our physicality and get some defensive stops when we need them. I think we will score points, and present problems for opponents when we have the ball. Yes, we return four out of five offensive line starters, so we are really excited about that. If that group, and our defense can step up the physicality, we can have a great year in the record book.
