88

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Prep News
Volume 88, Issue 01
SPORTS
August 25, 2023
AMDG
Returning talent has football hopes high for ‘23 season
BY Tim Browdy and
Ben Begley
reporters
The temperature is not the
only thing heating up on
Oakland Avenue. The St. Louis
U High football team is ready
to go tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
after the game, originally scheduled
for tonight, was changed
due to the heat. The Jr. Bills kick
start their season on the road
against the back-to-back state
champions of St. Mary’s. According
to the GSV large and
small school rankings, the No.
10 Jr. Bills competitively stack
up against the St. Mary’s No. 2
roster. Second year head coach
Adam Cruz and his staff are eager
to see how their largely returning-varsity
roster will fare
against St. Mary’s this weekend
and against other opponents in
the coming weeks.
The Jr. Bills are hungry for
revenge based on their history
against St. Mary’s the past couple
of seasons, and on St. Mary’s
recent success in the state finals,
according to Cruz.
“The game is going to mean
a lot with what’s happened at
their school over the past couple
of years,” said Cruz. “And
like I told the guys, they’re two
time state champs and they’re
going to act like it.”
In recent years, the Jr. Bills
have fallen short when it comes
to Week 1 performances.
“We haven’t won our opening
game since 2019, which was
when the current seniors were
eighth graders,” said Cruz. “It’s
important to get off to a great
start and I’m excited to kind of
buck these trends.”
The Jr. Bills’ other opponent
this week as they prepared for
St. Mary’s was the unusually
high temperatures. The team
was forced to shift practice time
to later in the evening to avoid
the heat.
“Everybody’s going to have
a ton of excuses and have to
make a ton of adjustments this
week,” said Cruz. “We’ve got to
roll with the punches because
they’re rolling with them over at
St. Mary’s and all over St. Louis.”
Cruz is especially confident
about Week 1 and the
rest of the year given the talent
that is returning to St. Louis
U. High this fall. At the helm
of the quarterback position is
returning starter and captain
senior Marco Sansone. Sansone
will look to build off his
second team All-MCC Athlete
selection as both a runner and
a passer after throwing for 2,245
yards and 22 touchdowns last
season.
Sansone is also eager to face
St. Mary’s tomorrow.
“I’m happy that we get to
play them because of our outcome
last year. We get a chance
Marco Sansone preparing to take a snap in the jamboree against Marquette.
to get revenge and it’ll really set
the tone for the season,” said
Sansone. “The heat plays in
great. We’ve got no players that
play both ways. We just need to
be disciplined.”
The offense will also feature
a dynamic and seasoned wide
receiver and a strong running
back core. Arguably the deepest
position group on the team,
the Jr. Bills will be loaded at the
receiver position as they return
three key starters. Senior captain
5-star recruit Ryan Wingo
headlines the core as he seeks
All-Metro and All-State honors
for consecutive years.
Alongside Wingo, SLUH
returns senior captain Joe Harris,
who is an All-Conference
and All-District selection himself,
and two-way senior speedstar
Jacobi Oliphant. Oliphant’s
6-foot-5 frame and speed will
be a matchup dream for the Jr.
Bills at the wide receiver and
safety positions.
In addition to the strength
of the receiving core, Cruz is
also confident in the running
back corps, which includes
senior John Smith along with
sophomores Jordan Taylor and
KaLaun Grace.
At the tight end position,
Power 5 prospect Landon Pace
will also be a threat for the Jr.
Bills this season.
Cruz is especially excited
for the team’s non-skill positions
as well.
“We’re young on the offensive
line, but I’m really excited
about that. Defensively, it looks
like right now it’s an all-senior
defensive line, which is also
pretty cool,” said Cruz.
Notable defensive assets
include senior captains and
defensive ends Archie Carruthers
and Vince Chappuis,
senior linebacker Kyle Wright,
sophomore linebacker Kendall
McNutt, junior cornerback
Matthew Moore, and sophomore
safeties Will Schulte and
Keenan Harris.
This heavy hitting team
was put to the test last Friday
when they took part in the
Marquette Jamboree. The Jr.
Bills were faced up against
Webster Groves, Lindbergh,
and the home team Marquette.
Competition is not new for this
photo | Vic Lewchenko
team as they have been a part of
multiple joint practices against
good teams like Eureka and
Rockwood Summit.
Game 1 was against Marquette.
Sophomore Jordan
Taylor started the jamboree off
hot, breaking multiple tackles
on the very first play and forcing
Marquette to fear the run
game, which allowed Sansone
to throw a laser to senior Joe
Harris to put SLUH on the
board early for an easy 7 points.
SLUH’s defense followed
up with an even better performance,
holding Marquette
scoreless with key defensive
plays from sophomore Kendall
McNutt, Oliphant, senior Kodi
Cade, and senior edge rusher JJ
Brandon.
After winning the first
game 7-0, SLUH matched up
against Lindbergh. The Jr. Bills
unfortunately did not carry the
energy from the previous game
to the next as they went scoreless
through their entire drive.
However, the Jr. Bills defense
returned the favor, holding
the Flyers scoreless with Vince
Chappuis making a game saving
tackle to prevent the Flyer’s
QB from scrambling to the
end zone. Although they didn’t
lose to Lindbergh, they weren’t
happy with the results.
“I thought our defense did
really well and executed plays
well, but on the offensive side
we couldn’t find a stride, we
just executed poorly. This week
we’ve just been trying to execute
better and are trying to get focused
for a big game Saturday,”
said Sansone.
SLUH moved on to their
next game against Webster
Groves to close out the Jamboree.
The matchup was electric
with both teams scoring
21 points each. The Jr. Bills
offense finally picked up with
touchdowns from senior WR
Nathan Gunn and Oliphant.
“Last year we won the Jamboree
state championship and
that didn’t reflect on the season.
We’re not so much worried
about results as we are executing
and seeing some things we
need to see,” said Cruz.
The Jr. Bills plan to learn
from the Jamboree but not
dwell on it as they head into
their first matchup against St.
Mary’s tomorrow night .
Swimming kicks off season with Blue and White intersquad meet
BY Andrew Hunt and
Kearney Foy
Core Staff, reporter
This is a State Championship
team!”
These are the words spoken
by varsity swim coach Lindsey
Ehret that her battle-hardened
team has begun to echo—an exciting
proclamation of success
this year, and a promise to work
hard. And it’s certainly fitting:
the team returns stronger than
ever this year, with newfound
speed, new faces, and even
higher season prospects.
The St. Louis U. High swim
and dive team kicked off the
2023 season—and all this excitement—with
the Blue and
White intersquad meet Saturday
afternoon at Chaminade.
This annual meet, a tradition
in the program, pits half of the
swim and dive team members
against the other half in friendly
competition of Blue vs. White.
This year’s competition was an
undisputed success.
“The Blue and White meet
was a lot of fun this year,” said
senior captain Aidan Brawer.
“It gave our new swimmers an
opportunity to run through a
high school swim meet for the
first time and it provided some
friendly competition to our returning
swimmers.”
The meet, alongside time
trials a week prior, also highlighted
the incredible speed
improvements of this year’s
varsity swim team. Last year, the
squad was teeming with young,
promising talent among the
freshman, sophomore, and junior
classes. Now, it’s their time
to shine as the team’s promising
underclassmen become upperclassmen
and display new personal-bests
early in the season.
The off-season work for swimmers
like juniors Charlie Hill
and Ben Chumley and sophomore
Connor Dunker is already
proving to pay off.
“There’s just so much of a
difference between a freshmansophomore
strong class and
when they get older, so our
middle classes are really, really
strong,” said Ehret.
Coupled with this newfound
speed, a lot of swimmers
will be shifting around which
events they swim, as part of
Ehret’s new season motto that
“everybody has got to have two
events.” Ehret hopes to broaden
each swimmer’s capabilities for
meets throughout the season—
for example, Hill will take a
more permanent role among
SLUH’s “distance dudes” (swimming
long races like the 500-
yard and 200-yard individual
medley), while Dunker squares
in on the 100-yard butterfly
and junior Evan Zimmerman,
a breaststroker, tests out the waters
in the 200-yard IM.
SLUH has talent from the
new Class of 2027, with three
freshmen making varsity.
Among them is prodigy Drew
Hopkins, who garnered topten
times in all four 50-yard
events at this year’s time trials,
including the fastest time for
backstroke (24.88 seconds). He
will likely swim the 100-yard
backstroke and 100-yard butterfly
events in meets this year.
“I’m very excited about
Drew Hopkins,” said Ehret.
“He’s very promising.”
Although more freshmen
tend to make varsity, Ehret
highlighted how the junior
varsity team, led by economics
teacher Rob Hill, has some future
varsity prospects brewing
in the pot, like sophomores Jack
Brawer and Will Steurer.
The SLUH home pool at
Forest Park Community College
remains under construction,
whisking varsity away to the waters
of Principia, JV to Chaminade,
and diving to Brentwood,
similar to the 2022 season. The
FPCC pool is scheduled to reopen
for SLUH use in October.
“We’ll be home, which will
be a relief,” said Ehret. “I think
it just helps create community.
It eliminates a lot of stress. It
makes your focus more on doing
good in practice instead of
all these other factors.”
Nevertheless, the current
adversity has only brought the
team closer together and made
them stronger. The faster-thanever
times have varsity buzzing
with excitement for the year’s
big meets: the COMO meet at
Mizzou, which will introduce
them to the best teams in the
state like Rockhurst, and the
State Championships in early
November.
“I’m most looking forward
to our (COMO) meet at Mizzou
this year,” said senior captain
Aidan Brawer. “Because it
is a two day meet and we will be
staying there overnight, I think
it will be a great opportunity for
Geroge Albert on the diving block.
our team to grow closer and to
put up some fast times.”
While the team fell short to
fifth place at state last year, its
members are confident—and
very determined—to work hard
and make it big this year.
“We got more dogs than a
photo | Brendan Hunt
kennel in Cleveland,” said senior
Mattie Peretz, who was chosen
by the captains as last week’s
Swimmer of the Week. “I got
more faith in us winning it all
this year than I do in the good
Lord making the sun come out
tomorrow.”