Jackets vet, Sharks fresh for coaches’ soph seasons

By Stephen Bell
Herald sports editor
St. Louis gets an early start to coach Julian Paksi’s second season when the Sharks play host to Grandville Calvin Christian today, Thursday.
Also in the TVC-West II, defending champion Ithaca and its second-year coach, Jordan Hessbrook, open at home Friday against Homer.
The majority of Ithaca’s lineup is retuning starters, including five who started at some point last year on the offensive line, and quarterback Bronson Bupp. Bupp was the Gratiot County offensive player of the year in 2021, his first year as a starter, and should be even better this time around after accounting for 27 combined touchdowns running or passing.
“Bronson is more comfortable going through our passing game and running game, he has a better grasp of what what we’re trying to do,” Hessbrook said. “He’s doing a good job reading defenses and has gotten a better chemistry with his receivers.”
Chief among those is senior Ethan Hull, a towering target with a diminutive but dangerous fellow receiver Charlie Martyn. Junior running back Noah Risner is Ithaca’s second-leading returning rusher, after Bupp. He’ll run behind senior Kaleb Peska, senior Jeffrey Lombard, junior Brandon Pass, senior Mason VanCamp and sophomore Broden Peska. They are all two-way linemen, other than Kaleb Peska who was Ithaca’s leading tackler as a linebacker. Bupp, Hull and Martyn all start in the defensive backfield as well.
Younger players in the mix are Kaleb Hallock, a junior receiver and linebacker; Joe Dawe, a junior defensive back and receiver; and Ryley White, a sophomore receiver and defensive back.
“With a lot of guys coming back, we’ve been able to hit the ground running and pick up on the momentum of what we learned last season,” Hessbrook said.
While Ithaca is packed with senior starters, St. Louis will have some freshmen in its starting lineup, out of 15 ninth-graders on the roster. The good news? As eighth-graders last fall, this now-freshman team outscored opponents 400-6 over a six-game season. And they have some immediate examples and role models to look to, as sophomores Trenton Farkas at receiver, Nado Soto at running and defensive back, and Justin Rodgiguez as a two-way linemen, all found their way into the starting lineup last season as freshmen.
But there are some Sharks who can drive legally. Senior captain RJ Macias was an all-county offensive linemen as a junior. Senior Wisdom Zanquo is back at defensive back and wide receiver. Running back and defensive back Josh Dew is a second-time team captain as only a junior. St. Louis quarterback Thomas Zacharko is also a veteran, of sorts. He was an all-league defensive back as a sophomore in 2020, then ran on the Sharks’ state championship cross country team last fall. Paksi said the offense will have a different look, spreading it out more after last season packing it in and having to go against nine men in the opposing defensive box.
“With having a full off-season, which we didn’t last year, we were able to really focus on culture and team bonding,” Paksi said. “In the four years I’ve been here, we had our highest off-season participation rate. To start practice we had a three-day camp in Gladwin, and it was great to see how well the freshmen meshed with the seniors.”