The Dike-New Hartford football team is bringing high expectations into the season with an experienced varsity lineup.
Offensively, Head Coach Don Betts says nearly every position group has personnel who started last season.
“We’re feeling pretty good about where we are offensively as compared to a year ago.” Betts says. “I really like our running back position between Noah Borcherding and Tyson Bennett. I think we’ve got two very, very good tail backs. On the offensive line, we bring back four starters there and there’s been a real heated battle for that other starting spot between about three different kids. And I like what I’m seeing with them also. And then we bring back our skill kids, our wide receivers. But we’ve got a couple kids who are pressing for playing time there also. So I like our offense. I hope that we can be a little more balanced this year than we were last year with it.”
At running back, senior Noah Borcherding rushed for 991 yards last year, and senior Tyson Bennett will look to expand his role after receiving 21 carries last year. At wide receiver, seniors Devon Lotts and Carson Costello are back after accounting for nearly 70 percent of the team’s receiving yards last year. Colin Meester is back for his senior season at quarterback, and will be a rare multi-year starter in that position compared to recent program history.
Betts says for the few spots that will need to be filled, the non-district games will be a deciding factor.
“I think what we’re going to end up doing is, at some of those positions, taking our first couple games and giving guys opportunities to show what they can do. We’ve seen it in practice. They’ve all got different things that they need to work on to get a little bit better at, and we communicate that with them so that they can work on those things in practice. But early in the season, we’re probably going to get a lot of guys on the field, see how they react when it’s game time out there.”
The Wolverines will begin the season Friday at Grundy Center.
Don Betts interview:
