SportsAugust 18, 2016
Perryville football team hopes to continue upward trend
PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Coach Mike Wojtczuk is pleased with the upward trajectory of the Perryville football program, but he's not content with falling back in line. The Pirates wrapped up the 2015 regular season with their first winning record in Wojtczuk's tenure before being walloped by Farmington 64-14 in the first round of the Class 4 District 1 tournament, ending their campaign at .500 with a 5-5 mark...
PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Coach Mike Wojtczuk is pleased with the upward trajectory of the Perryville football program, but he's not content with falling back in line.
The Pirates wrapped up the 2015 regular season with their first winning record in Wojtczuk's tenure before being walloped by Farmington 64-14 in the first round of the Class 4 District 1 tournament, ending their campaign at .500 with a 5-5 mark.
Whether it was a blowout victory, a lopsided loss or a close call, Perryville experienced a little bit of everything last year, leading Wojtczuk onto the next step -- honing his team's overall consistency.
"We won some games last year, but we felt like we let a couple games get away from us," he said. "We definitely weren't satisfied with that."
The Pirates return a wealth of experience on both sides of the ball, and Wojtczuk has made his team expectations readily accessible.
"I don't ever want them to get outworked. That's one thing about the kids at Perryville -- ever since I've been here, even as an assistant, they've always worked hard," Wojtczuk said. "... I want this team to be the hardest-working group of kids that I've ever been associated with, and so far, they're getting pretty close."
Offense
The Pirates begin the season at a disadvantage with the loss of starting quarterback Brandon Renaud, a 6-foot-2 signal caller who broke his ankle in an accident at the end of June shortly after the team attended a contact camp at Southeast Missouri State.
Renaud, who's now a senior, led Perryville's offense last year with 11 touchdowns on 554 yards rushing and another 14 TDs through the air on 1,494 yards passing. He'll be replaced by junior Ross Hadler, who got some playing time while backing up Renaud a year ago. Wojtczuk said Renaud's surgery and recovery has been coming along nicely, and he expects him to return to action at some point this season.
"Ross was a junior and played quarterback for us last year behind Brandon, and he got quite a bit of varsity experience last year," Wojtczuk said. "He stepped right in there and, to be honest, hasn't missed a beat. The kids are following his lead. He's doing a really nice job for us."
Senior Garrett Dix and sophomore Marcus Mahathath will band together to make up the production of last year's star wideout, Connor Stark, who graduated after racking up 435 yards receiving and six TDs.
"Garrett's grown several inches, and he's spent a lot of time in the weight room," Wojtczuk said. "He's gotten faster and stronger. ... He's got a great set of hands, and he's developed a pretty good vertical now."
At running back, junior Derek Kirn and senior Kyle Creason will be called upon to replace Blake Mattingly, who accounted for six touchdowns and 985 yards from scrimmage last year.
Perryville lost three cogs on the offensive line in Matt Terbrak, Austin Bachmann and Austin Mueller, but returns three starters -- senior Jesse Yates, junior Clayton Jung and senior Bryant Weibrecht.
Defense/ST
Lucas Ponder had a team-leading 75 tackles last year, including two for loss. He returns as a senior to lead the Pirates' defense and will be joined by Jung, Creason, Kirn and junior Bryce Flaherty in a deep corps of linebackers, one that exemplifies what Wojtczuk likes most about his defense.
"I think we've got a really good mix of people," he said. "Hopefully we're going to be able to rotate about 17 or 18 kids on defense."
Yates and sophomore Joel Dougherty, a converted linebacker, will lead the way at defensive end, while Weibrecht, junior Duane Jung and junior Jerome Simpson are expected to rotate at defensive tackle.
Opponents scored an average of 32.5 points per game last season, but Yates is hopeful that a productive offseason will reverse that trend.
"We've just gone out there every day and just put in the work. We just keep fighting," he said. "We're basically staying in our playbooks because we've got a lot more stunts and blitzes that we're putting in. We've just got to stay focused with our install and make sure we're paying attention."
Flaherty, Dix and Mahathath will contribute at cornerback, while junior Logan Thaxton and sophomore Eric Roth, a track & field standout, will lead the way at safety.
Dix and sophomore James Rhoden will handle place-kicking duties, Kirn will likely contribute at punter and a host of players -- Mahathath, Flaherty, Kirn and Roth -- will contribute as return specialists.
Final analysis
Perryville will rely heavily on its 27-player junior class, as only five have left since they entered the program as freshmen, according to Wojtczuk.
"We're leaps and bounds ahead of where we were before," said Wojtczuk, who's entering his sixth season at the helm. "When I first got here, we had 35 kids in the program, and that's [grades] 9-12. Now we're pushing 80.
"It's enabled us to keep kids fresh. We went from 11 guys playing on both sides of the ball and have cut that back to maybe half a dozen. ... If you can play the numbers game with teams a little bit and not lose a whole lot with subbing those guys in and out, that's huge. We're going to be able to do that a little bit this year at particular positions, and we're real excited about that."
Wojtczuk enters the year with an entirely new coaching staff, including offensive coordinator John Ames, who coached Southeast all-conference linebacker Roper Garrett during his high school days at Farmington.
"We're just talking about taking care of business and finishing," Wojtczuk said. "We've found that we either started slow and finished strong or started fast and then didn't finish. We've got to play four complete quarters from start to finish -- that would probably be our biggest goal this year. We just want to play four fundamentally-sound quarters of football and put ourselves in a position to win."
---
2016 Perryville Pirates Roster
No. Name Year Ht. Wt. Pos.
4 Zack Morgan 12 5-10 170 WR/DB
5 Drew Korando 10 5-9 170 QB/DB
6 Ross Hadler 11 5-11 150 QB/DB
7 Brandon Renaud 12 6-2 205 QB/DB
8 Eric Roth 10 5-10 155 SB/DB
10 Bryce Flaherty 11 5-9 160 SB/DB
11 Logan Thaxton 11 6-1 170 WR/DB
13 Marcus Mahathath 10 5-11 155 WR/DB
17 Mitchell Kline 11 5-11 145 WR/DB
18 Garrett Dix 12 6-2 170 WR/DB
20 Reese Reagan 10 5-10 155 WR/DB
22 Tyler Brooks 10 5-7 130 WR/DB
23 Tyler Roth 10 5-8 140 RB/LB
24 Austin Cook 10 5-8 145 RB/LB
26 James Rhoden 10 6-4 215 TE/DE
27 Sloan Hunter 11 5-10 145 SB/DB
29 Derek Kirn 11 5-10 160 RB/LB
32 Garrett Richardet 11 5-10 150 WR/DB
34 Kyle Creason 12 6-0 170 RB/LB
40 Joel Daugherty 11 6-0 200 FB/DE
43 Montana Difani 11 6-0 175 TE/DE
44 Seth Rousseau 10 6-0 160 RB/LB
Receive Daily Headlines FREESign up today!
46 Lucas Ponder 12 5-10 190 FB/LB
50 Jackson Broeking 10 6-1 200 OL/LB
51 Bryant Weibrecht 12 5-10 290 OL/DL
52 Jerome Simpson 11 5-8 190 OL/LB
53 Clayton Jung 11 6-0 200 OL/LB
54 Jesse Yates 12 6-0 270 OL/DL
55 Duane Jung 12 5-10 275 OL/DL
56 Dustin James 11 5-10 200 OL/LB
57 Austin Bohnert 11 5-7 185 OL/LB
60 Tyler Moll 11 5-8 210 OL/DL
61 Garrett Blechle 11 5-7 265 OL/DL
62 Kendall Barber 12 6-2 260 OL/DL
63 Holton Williams 10 5-8 240 OL/DL
64 Brandon Bert 11 6-0 320 OL/DL
65 Trystin French 10 6-1 235 OL/DL
68 Dylan Schumacker 10 5-10 175 OL/LB
70 Conner Steffens 11 6-1 215 OL/DL
71 Tony Konarcik 10 6-5 362 OL/DL
72 Josh Kile 11 6-2 215 OL/DL
73 Dakota Voudrie 12 6-0 215 OL/DL
74 Gage Schmidt 10 5-11 315 OL/DL
75 Brenden Blechle 11 5-9 264 OL/DL
76 Jacob Bierk 11 6-3 270 OL/DL
80 Tyler Legg 10 5-8 140 WR/DB
85 Devin Heinicke 10 5-6 120 WR/DB
88 Tyler Yates 12 5-11 145 WR/DB
---
Head coach
Mike Wojtczuk, 6th year (13-37)
Assistant coaches
John Ames, Brent Broeking, Garrett Ditch, Rick Dunn, Wayne Sheets, Raymond Woldvedt
---
2016 schedule
Date Opponent Time
8.19 DE SOTO 7 p.m.
8.26 @St. Pius X 7 p.m.
9.2 @Fredericktown 7 p.m.
9.9 @Potosi 7 p.m.
9.16 ST. VINCENT 7 p.m.
9.23 PARK HILLS CENTRAL 7 p.m.
9.30 STE. GENEVIEVE 7 p.m.
10.7 @Windsor 7 p.m.
10.15 SCOTT CITY 1 p.m.
---
2015 at a glance
Record: 5-5
Playoff result: Lost to Farmington 64-14 in Class 4 District 1 first round
Points for: 28.4 ppg
Points against: 32.5 ppg
---
Key returners
OFFENSE
Passing: Brandon Renaud (117-228, 1,494 yds., 14 TD, 10 Int.)
Rushing: Renaud (97 att., 554 yds., 11 TD)
Receiving: Garrett Dix (21 rec., 240 yds., 4 TD)
DEFENSE
Tackles: Lucas Ponder (75)
Sacks: Clayton Jung (2)
Interceptions: Logan Thaxton (4)
Story Tags
Advertisement
Related
Connect with the Southeast Missourian Newsroom:
For corrections to this story or other insights for the editor, click here. To submit a letter to the editor, click here. To learn about the Southeast Missourian’s AI Policy, click here.
Advertisement
Receive Daily Headlines FREESign up today!
