High School Football Preview

A return to their winnings ways. That's the goal for the Sartell-St. Stephen Sabres. Head Coach Scott Hentges joined me on WJON. The Sabres were 1-8 last season but have already started this season 1-0 after posting a 42-21 win over Tech last week on week zero.

The Rocori Spartans are the defending Class 4A State champs after defeating Bemidji 17-10 in the Prep Bowl in 2011. Rocori returns some key players but lost alot of talent from their state championship team. Quarterback Nate Meyer is playing college football at South Dakota State and Mac Mueller is set to replace him at quarterback.

The Sartell-St. Stephen Sabres begin the Scott Hentges era this season. He replaces longtime head coach and current Athletic Director John Ross. Hentges had been the defensive coordinator under Ross. Hentges comes from a coaching family. His Dad, Bruce had been the head coach at St. Cloud Tech in the late 1980s and 1990s and is assisting Scott in Sartell.

The Sauk Rapids-Rice Storm underachieved and battled key injuries in 2011 and finished with a 2-7 record including a 42-16 loss to Alexandria in the first round of the section playoffs. Storm are focused on improvement with head coach Bill Magnuson.

The Cathedral football team has improved each of the first 3 seasons under head coach Dean Taylor the bar is set even higher for this season. Cathedral won just 1 game in Taylor's first year there but 3 games the following year and 6 games in 2011. Cathedral lost some key players from last year's team but Taylor has high hopes for this year's team.

The Apollo Eagles were 0-9 in 2011 under head coach Justin Skallerud. Apollo suffered a 21-20 loss at home against Willmar late in the season which shows the improvement made throughout the season. The Eagles are a young team against with 44 freshman out, 40 sophomore and around 20 juniors and 20 seniors.

The St. Cloud Tech Tigers were 7-3 in 2011 and return some key players in 2012. They include top running back Jacob Peterson. #30 will be a challenge for the rest of the Central Lakes Conference and the teams in section 85A to deal with. Peterson could surpass Scott Schmitz to become the all-time leading rusher in Tech football history.