Under the guidance of experienced head coach Ben Lindsay, the Heartland Huskie football team plans on competing this year. Coach Lindsay has been at the helm for the past six years and served as an assistant for three years before heading up the football program.
Last year, with the help of a strong group of seniors, they posted a 7-3 winning record, making it to the second round of D-2 district finals, losing to Neligh, who was the eventual runner-up. This year, returning starters for Heartland are Hudson Regier and Carter Siebert.
“We lost eleven seniors who graduated, so we have quite a few inexperienced younger players this season. But I expect these younger guys to step up and get the job done. We have seven seniors out this year and a roster of about 26-27 kids,” said Coach Lindsay.
Returning letter winners are Luis Alvarez, Nick Thieszen, Andrew Franz, Devin Holmka, Jack McCormick, Sam Quiring, and Hunter Perez.
This summer, the team competed in a Five-on-Five league in Giltner for three Thursday nights in July. “It was a positive experience to see how we measure up against some of the teams we’ll play this season, like Nebraska Christian and Giltner, and some teams we’ll never come up against, like Axtell,” said Coach Lindsay.
They just completed their team camp here at Heartland last Monday and Tuesday before heading over to Concordia College in Seward for another team camp. “We played well and got to see a lot of good teams. We must overcome our inexperience and focus on developing our skilled positions this year,” said Coach Lindsay.
Two-a-day practices will begin on Monday, August 7, when they will have a long two-hour practice early in the morning and return in the evening for a no-contact one-hour walk-through, according to Coach Lindsay.
Heartland has an experienced staff with assistant coaches Blake Burgess, Tony Rice, and Conner Boehr. Boehr is a new addition to the staff and a former Heartland player. “It’s kinda neat because I coached Conner my first year when he was a sophomore and now we are coaching together,” said Coach Lindsay. Boehr went on to play football at Morningside College so he brings a lot of knowledge to the table for the Huskie team.
Their first game will be away on Friday, August 25th, against Shelby/Rising City, and will be a tough test for their first game. “They had the number one defense in D-1 last year, so it will certainly be a challenging game for our opener,” said Coach Lindsay.
“It’s going to be an interesting season with several teams we play who were senior-heavy like we were last year and some teams with experienced returners,” said Coach Lindsay. He is confident the Huskies can compete with everyone on their schedule this year.
Huskie 2023 Football Schedule:
Friday, August 25 @ Shelby/Rising City
Friday, September 1 @ home Nebraska Christian
Friday, September 8 @ Thayer Central
Friday, September 15 @ home McCool
Friday, September 22 @ Sutton
Friday, September 29 @ Superior
Friday, October 13 @ home Pleasanton
