Young Hawks learning quickly as they aim for more victories

RIB LAKE-PRENTICE PREVIEW

The Rib Lake-Prentice Hawks aren’t blessed with a ton of size or experience, so they’ll look to speed, agility and smarts while aiming to build a successful 2022 football season.

The program’s roster for grades 9-12 features 30 players but almost two-thirds of them are sophomores and freshmen. Four sophomores are penciled in for starting roles when the team kicks off its season Friday with a 7 p.m. non-conference game at Marathon.

Among the most critical areas of loss due to graduation is up front as four of last year’s seniors were starting linemen.

But, the four seniors and the coaches see some bright spots heading into this week’s opener and are excited to see how the 2022 season unfolds.

“We’re excited for sure,” senior quarterback and safety Michael Borchardt said last week. “It’s definitely a little bit younger group with only four seniors, but we’re definitely seeing some younger guys, sophomores and juniors, stepping up into big roles and they’re doing well.”

“You can tell we have a younger team, an inexperienced team as far as varsity comes,” co-head coach Jonah Campbell said Monday. “So there’s been a lot of learning in the first two weeks. I think they’ve done a nice job learning the scheme. They seemed fairly confident in everything they did on Friday at the scrimmage. That showed that they’ve learned and were up to the task of getting all the plays in that we needed and weren’t confused.”

Campbell begins his fifth season as the Rib Lake half of the co-head coaching position. Michael Semon has moved up as Prentice’s lead coach and will head up the team’s defensive unit this fall.

The Hawks are coming off a 1-7 season that ended on a high note with a convincing 35-7 win over Ladysmith. The Hawks were credited with a 3-4 record in the Lakeland Conference due to forfeit wins over Flambeau and Lake Holcombe-Cornell, who bolted for eight-player football. The Hawks will get credit for a forfeit over Flambeau again this year in their last game of the regular season at Unity.

Rib Lake-Prentice got its first hits of the season in during Friday’s scrimmage in Tomahawk, where the Hawks traded plays with the host Hatchets, defending WIAA Division 6 state champion Colby and Wittenberg- Birnamwood. Campbell said there were some eye-opening moments for the younger players, especially against Colby and Wittenberg-Birnamwood, but the coaches felt the Hawks played well against the Hatchets. He said, for the most part, players were in the right positions and knew their assignments. “We were happy with where the kids got from just that first week and progressing through last week as far as knowing exactly what they’re supposed to do,” he said. “They looked solid as far as knowledge of the schemes that we run on both sides of the ball. But you can tell we had some younger guys, some inexperienced guys going against players that are confident in their scheme, like the upperclassmen from Wittenberg and Colby.”

The Hawks aren’t making any sweeping changes to their schemes of the past few years on either side of the ball.

On the offensive side, where Campbell calls the plays, Rib Lake feels it has capable skill players, but will need the new starters on the line to grow up fast and create space for them to work.

Borchardt enters his third year as the starting quarterback. Sophomore Adam Raab, who took some snaps late last year when Borchardt was out, is also back.

“Now it’s just pretty easy going,” he said of having experience at that key position. “Having Campbell all four years has been great. Right now we can just kind of read each other’s minds where he knows what I’m thinking, I know what he’s thinking. When the season started we just kept what we had going from last year.”

“Michael is a very good leader back there,” Campbell said. “He knows what I’m thinking when plays are called. He knows what to do with the ball and where to go with it.”

He’ll operate behind a penciled in starting line of sophomore Logan Geiger at left tackle, senior Ryan Griebel at left guard, sophomore Brady Heiser at center, junior Michael Butler at right guard and senior Jacob DiFrances at right tackle. Junior Michael Murphy is among the veterans in mix for playing time on the line. Geiger and Heiser are the biggest of the starters but are also the youngest.

“It’s relying on knowing where they’re going and just being able to physically handle playing guys who are going to be heavier than them in the upcoming weeks,” Campbell said. “One thing that kind of stuck out at the scrimmage was you got some smaller guys and unless they can play fast, which comes with knowledge of the scheme when you’re playing a team like Colby or Wittenberg that has bigger guys, you’re going to have to be able to hold your own with the lack of size. Part of that is just going to have to be knowing exactly what you’re supposed to do, taking good angles, getting in the way even if you can’t hold the block for too long. Do enough to not get defeated right away.”

The team’s top running backs at this point are junior Kaden Kennedy and sophomore Jonas Staroba. Staroba got a dozen carries and did well with them late last season. Kennedy has shown some quickness and burst so far in camp.

“Kaden and Jonas are definitely a nice one-two punch in the backfield,” Borchardt said. “They’re both quick, about the same size, small and hard to tackle. We’re definitely trying to use that to our advantage.”

Senior Dominick Classen caught eight passes last year and is the top returning receiver, while juniors Dominic Quednow and Donovan Sutherland will be top targets as well for Borchardt.

“I think when you look at the skill positions, we’re sitting pretty good,” Campbell said. “Donovan had a couple of nice catches at the scrimmage. Dominic Quednow has excelled at the JV level with route running and pass catching, he’s done a nice job. We have Dominick Classen back. He had significant playing time last year. They all know what they’re doing. There hasn’t been any questions there or confusion with any of the backs or receivers.”

Defensively, the Hawks are hoping their front line can create enough disruption to allow their inexperienced linebackers to make plays. Borchardt and Classen are the senior leaders at safety and the Hawks are confident in Quednow and Sutherland at the cornerback spots. Geiger, DiFrances, Heiser, Butler and junior Andrew Murphy are early candidates to play up front. Kennedy, Staroba and sophomore Logan Schmidtfranz are the opening-day linebackers.

“We have three smaller linebackers,” Campbell said. “They’re all quick and smart. But it’s a matter of having three shorter guys at linebacker, so disruption on the line is going to be big for them to be able to shoot gaps and make plays. I think our secondary looks pretty well put together.”

From the freshman class, Jackson Isaacson is the most likely candidate to find playing time.

The Hawks should get a clearer understanding of where they stand and where they need to get better in their first two non-conference games against old Marawood rivals Marathon and Auburndale. Lakeland Conference play starts with a home game in Prentice against last year’s runner-up Unity on Sept. 2. The Hawks played a competitive game with the Eagles last fall, losing 28-6. They’re at Webster on Sept. 9, facing a team they’ve lost two close games to in 2020 and 2021.

“We’ve had two years of really close games with Webster,” Campbell said. “You’d like to finally pull that one. That’d be big for them. We were in it and felt like we were the better team both times but just couldn’t finish. I know the guys are looking forward to Ladysmith.

A lot of guys got to play at the end of that game last year. We had a competitive close game with Unity.” “Teams like Webster and Ladysmith and Unity, those are teams we’ve competed with in the past so I don’t think anything should change,” Borchardt said. “We want to come out on top in all of those games. There’s definitely still going to be some great teams. Hurley is Hurley. Auburndale is good. Those games you know are going to be tougher but you have to go in those tough games with the mentality that we’re going to compete and see what comes of it and we’re going to do our best.” The seniors said that’s what they expect this team to do.

“We have the will,” DiFrances said. “It’s not just the agility and all that. We have the will to use it and keep on going.”

“Guys are hungry,” Borchardt said. “That’s always a big thing. If you have a team where nobody wants to compete then you’re already behind.”

Rib Lake-Prentice cornerback Dominic Quednow picks off a pass just before it hits the ground during the team’s Aug. 9 practice in Prentice.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS