Most fall sports start practices a few weeks before school starts, but that’s not the case for the football team who have been training since June. After a state championship two years ago and an undefeated season last year, the Red Knights are looking to bounce back from last year’s disappointing playoff loss to Orono.

This year’s team captains, seniors John Whitmore, Mason James, Matt Guggemos, and junior Joe Marinaro are all excited for the upcoming season. “It’s going to be hard to replace all the senior talent but we have a lot of good up-and-coming players,” senior Whitmore said.

The team graduated twenty-two players last year and junior sensation Joe Marinaro injured his back this summer and will most likely be out for the season.

Despite the losses leading up to the season, BSM football still has a lot of talent. A few sophomores like Malik Robertson, Will Petty, and Darnell Mcrea have jumped into the starting lineup this year and junior Nick Peterson earned the starting Quarterback job after Tommy Anderson graduated last year. “We graduated 22 people and that’s gonna hurt everyone. After the last two years, everyone kind of has high standards now because of it. They expect for us to be great and we just need to step up to it. I think key captains including Mason and Matthew Guggemos will have to really step along with myself. I think we are gonna have a lot of young guys playing that will also need to play big as well. Kids like DJ, Johnny, Malik, William, and many others,” Peterson said.

The Red Knights will again have some tough competition this year with many 5A schools on the schedule despite the fact the BSM is a 4A school. “Our schedule is always hard. We always have to play 5A schools as a 4A school. We won state two years ago. AHA won it last year and Orono is expected to this year. So that is hard because our section is always really hard. I think we will stack up well against our teams; we are a good team but we always are forced to play tough teams,” Peterson said. 

The BSM community has high standards for the football team and the team always has high standards for themselves. They have set many goals for themselves and are hoping to achieve all of them this season. “We plan on working hard at practice every day and making sure we stay focused throughout the season on our goals. Our goals are to win our section and win the state championship,” Whitmore said.