Three-Way Battle For Starting QB At First Week Of Laker Football Practice

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – With the first day of practices for fall sports on Monday, so began the Reed Hefta era of Detroit Lakes Football.

Hefta was hired as the 22nd head coach of the Laker football program last April, replacing Josh Omang after he accepted the job as Detroit Lakes High School principal. Hefta had been an assistant coach for the Lakers since 2013.

“The first couple of days of practice have been going fantastic,” said Hefta. “We’ve got just under 100 kids out for football between ninth and twelfth grade. We’ve had great weather in the morning for practices. The kids are working on getting back into the swing of things and having some normality back in football since COVID started.”

The Lakers weren’t sure when their football season would begin last year. Originally, a “fourth season” was added to the MSHSL schedule that would have had both football and volleyball beginning a shortened season in March, with normal spring sports to follow that. But, with improved COVID numbers across the state last fall, the MSHSL approved a late fall start for both sports. The Lakers played the first game of a six-game schedule on October 9th last year. The Lakers finished third in the Section 8AAAA last year and were set to play #2 seeded Grand Rapids in the first round of the section tournament. But after Governor Tim Walz announced four weeks of intense COVID shutdowns in late November, which included pausing youth sports, the postseason was rescheduled for Grand Rapids to face #1 seed Rocori. The Lakers ended their season on November 20th with a 35-0 home loss to Willmar.

“We learned a lot from the shortened season last year…mainly the need to communicate with players and the coaching staff,” Hefta says. “Covid really helped us jump into a 21st century way of teaching kids. The school district has always been ahead of the curve on the technology piece, but we really found effective ways to communicate with our kids whether that be online, or through practice, or getting playbooks out to the kids…the outreach piece has been really fantastic.”

The Lakers graduated 15 seniors last season, including starting quarterback Matthew Tobkin and a good chunk of their two-way lineman in Garrett Nelson, Zach Oistad, Andres Barnett, and Andrew Annette.

“Those guys left a good mark on this program and a lot of these young players,” Hefta said. “We’ve got a real strong program here. We’ve got a lot of young guys that learned a lot from watching and playing with those guys. A lot of them have game experience and are ready to fill those spots. We’ve got a smaller group of seniors this year, so there are going to be a lot of underclassmen with starting spots and leadership roles.”

Names to watch in the trenches this season include sophomore Isaac Cariveau and juniors Henry Lee, Cale Abraham, and Zack Carlson.

One of the big questions that coach Hefta will have to answer for the 2021 Laker Football team is who will be under center?

“One of the cool things about this time of year is that we never designate starters. We always have guys in the split position because competition always brings the best out of these kids. Right now we have three kids in contention for the quarterback spot. Senior Bradley Sweirs was the backup last year and is an absolutely dynamite kid. Sophomore Mason Carrier is a great athlete and a great young leader for our program. Junior Cade Jackson is a tremendous wrestler and is a great overall learner. It’s kind of fun to have three kids competing for the spot.”

The Lakers open the season on the road at Fergus Falls on Friday, September 3rd. The home opener at Mollberg Field will be the following Friday vs the East Grand Forks Green Wave.