The regular season of Jonathan Alder football is coming to an end with relative success.
“Seniors have been tremendous leaders, kids have been buying into what we’re preaching, and I think their buy-in has shown through our results,” says Coach Glass, the head coach. “So I’m really proud of the way we started, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
Glass played football here at Jonathan Alder, graduating in 2003, and went on to play at Otterbein University. He coached 7 seasons for Alder with a winning record. Eventually in 2021, he left to coach at Jerome high school. This year he makes a reappearance, which seems to make a big factor in the team’s success so far.
Last year at the end of the season, they were 5-6. The team has made a massive improvement, so far being 8-1 with one game left to play before playoffs.
Senior Cashton Wheeler says, “Well, in past years I feel like we’ve been kind of under-prepared, and this year I feel like we’re ready every single week for the team that we’re playing, so we have a better game plan I feel like.”
Even though there is clear improvement, there’s always things to improve on.
“I feel like we could kind of focus more on one thing at a time,” says Wheeler. “Sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves looking into future games.”
The shocking bounce-back from last year’s season to this year’s season isn’t only shown in the players physically, but also mentally. Even though the team has made massive improvement, they still faced one major obstacle: London’s Red Raiders. This year is the team’s 5th year in a row losing to London.
Before the London game, sophomore Trey Bentley said the team was optimistic. “What Coach Kyle’s putting in our heads, our mindset, is to be physical, and that just because they’re 7-0, we’re 7-0 too, and we can still win,” he said.
While the loss to London is the team’s one loss so far this season, they continue to keep their head up despite the outcome.
“Well, we kind of just washed it, put it in the back of our mind, and moved on ready for the next week,” Wheeler says.
Jonathan Alder is 2nd in the CBC, and so far having a record of 8-1. The team is playing against Bellefontaine Chieftains, on October 24th. They happen to be 3rd in the conference, last year being 2nd. This year the team goes into the game with high hopes of a win, after Bellfountaine lost their senior starting quarterback who is now committed to OSU. So far, only having one lose, this is setting the team up for the playoffs.
“We should get a bye that first week, so that’ll be good to recover. Everybody would kind of be at their best, ready for all,” says Wheeler. “Then I think we’ll play a pretty good team in the second week, but we should be able to win.”
