F/M/FA FOOTBALL PREVIEW: PHOENIX EYE ANOTHER STRONG RUN

JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER

When Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy took the field a year ago for its inaugural season as a football cooperative, nobody knew exactly what to expect.

It’s a different story this year.

And not only is there a better understanding of what Phoenix football will look like in its sophomore season, but hopes are high for a strong showing thanks to a group of talented and athletic student-athletes who contributed to last year’s outstanding campaign that ended with a 7-3 record and a — memorably — thrilling win in the first round of the playoffs.

“We have high expectations,” said head coach Dustin Tschetter, who will watch his team open the 2023 season at home Friday night against Burke — the same team F/M/FA defeated for its first program win at the onset of the 2022 season. “We return a lot of key components from last year; we’re still extremely young, but we like where we’re at heading into the first game.”

The Phoenix are once again playing in Class 9AA and as part of the Great Plains Conference, but at the onset of the season weren’t on most radar screens despite the surprising success of last year. Nowhere in the South Dakota Football Coaches Association Preseason Poll released this week is there mention of Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy football — only nine other teams: Top-ranked Wall, Parkston, Howard, Hamlin and Hanson who fill out the first five, and then Elkton-Lake Benton, Bon Homme, Platte-Geddes and Viborg-Hurley, which all received votes.

That could change once things get rolling for the Phoenix, who are dealing with the graduation of three key players from last year’s team — Ethan Balvin, Matt Hagen and Maddox Kihne — but return enough talent to make up for that and more.

F/M/FA will again be led by Riley Tschetter, a versatile quarterback who has shown to be ahead of his time. As a freshman last season, he threw for 2,225 yards and 30 touchdowns and rushed for 300 yards and another three scores over 10 games — all of which earned him all-conference honors.

Coach Tschetter says his quarterback’s ability to throw and pass “is huge.”

“Obviously we can spread teams out because they have to respect our passing game, but he can run it, too, and we have other backs who are very capable of running the football even better than him.

“We have a lot of kids who we think could have big years,” the coach says. “It’s going to come down to, ‘How do we get them the ball?’”

Tschetter says the Phoenix should have an improved running game over last year thanks in part to a better offensive line and will look to Dominic Sperling to make some noise at tailback. The Marion junior led the team in rushing as a sophomore last season, carrying the ball 101 times for 451 yards and three scores. F/M/FA will also look to sophomore Luke Peters and junior Chris Aasen, both students at Freeman Public, to contribute both in the backfield and as receivers.

“I’m expecting big things out of those three,” Tschetter said, who also noted that the Phoenix will do their best to get the ball to their biggest playmaker on the outside, Freeman Public senior Rocky Ammann, an all-conference honorable mention last year.

Ammann caught 20 passes for 323 yards and two touchdowns last season, and of those returning in 2023, is second only to Freeman Public senior Evan Scharberg in receiving.

Scharberg, of course, was the targeted tight end on that final play of the Phoenix’s first-round playoff game against Florence-Henry that resulted in the game-winning touchdown as time expired, and finished the season with 23 catches, 449 yards and seven touchdowns.

An all-conference selection last year, Scharberg will return as a tight end on the offensive side of the ball.

“We’ve seen what he can do there,” said Tschetter, who also mentioned Jackson Donlan and Karter Weber — both sophomores at Marion — as key contributors, and said Freeman Public sophomore Tate Sorensen and junior Sawyer Wipf will be key anchors on the line.

“We’re far more athletic than we were at any point last year,” said the coach. “We have many parts and pieces that can go anywhere on the field.”

Much of the groundwork for the season to come was laid last year and is only being bolstered this fall by a coaching staff that Tschetter says is the best he’s ever worked with in any sport. That includes Austin Unruh, “who is as good as an offensive coordinator as you’re going to find,” and new to the team this year, Kent Mueller, the legendary coach who built West Central football into one of South Dakota’s greatest high school dynasties of all time.

“He’s going to be a huge help on Friday nights,” Tschetter said of Mueller, who has been working primarily with the line alongside assistants Matt Brinkman and Ryan Sorensen. “Our line has taken huge strides forward; our defense looked a lot better last Friday than it did at any time last year, and a lot of that is him. We’re hoping that will lead to more success and a more complete product that we’re putting out there on Friday nights — not just trying to outscore everybody.

“All the guys — what they do, they do well,” he said of a coaching staff that also includes Jacob VonBerge. “I know they’re going to do things the way we want to do things and I trust what they’re doing.”

While there’s reason for optimism, Tschetter also checks himself.

“Like I said, we have high expectations, but at the same time we’re still extremely young,” he said. “We only have seven juniors and seniors; we’re putting a lot of sophomores out there, and that means we might not have as much experience as other teams. That could be a factor.”

But if the players commit to the program and are willing to play as a team, this will be a fun fall.

“It’s going to be about buying into the team aspect of the game,” Tschetter said. “Do your job and let the next guy do his job, and hopefully we’ll have success because of all the talent we have.

“We know we can throw the football and we have all kinds of athletes on the outside who can catch it,” the coach continues. “It’s going to come down to us being able to block a little bit better, and we have to tackle better.”

This much the coach knows: “We’re doing things differently than last year. Last year was trying to put a team together. This year we have a better idea of what we have and are more focused on us than anybody else.

“This year we’re going to do what we do and make the other team try to stop it.”