Trooper gridders open Tuesday
Trooper gridders open Tuesday
By STU MERRY
Let the season begin.
The Garrison-Max Troopers football team opens the 2011-12 high school sports season first. The Troop will open this year’s campaign Tuesday night, taking on Grant County. The game is at 7 p.m., and is in Elgin.
“Tuesday will be tough day for us,” said first-year Head Coach Jason Mattheis who is taking over the reins held last year by Darwin Routledge. Routledge, who was the high school principal, took a similar post at Minot’s Bishop Ryan High School.
Mattheis said drawbacks include it being only the second day of school and a long road trip.
“Grant County is a solid football team that will be a big challenge for us,” Mattheis said. “They do a lot of different things offensively, so we need to be able to adjust our defensive game plan on the fly.”
The coaching staff’s primary focus will be to show offensive improvement from last year. The Troopers improved steadily through last season as the players became more familiar with a new offense.
“We expect that to keep going,” Mattheis said.
The 2011 Troopers return starting QB Dylan Kinn and their top skill players in Andrew Haugen, Brett O’Grady, and Brookes Reinholt.
