Photo courtesy of Cory Larson: The 2023 Dawson-Boyd football team includes (left to right): Kolten Peterson, Clayton Ellis, Drew Hjelmeland, Parker Bothun, , Gunnar Olson, Brayson Boike, Brody Bothun, Ashton Swendra, Collin Olson. Second row: Nathan Hansen, Gunner Liebl, Kamerson Sather, Holland Schacherer, Grayson Olson, Mason Bothun, Carson Stratmoen, Mitchell Myers. Third row: Ace Larson, Colten Bothun, Evan Mork, Aedyn Dahl, Elvis Bellefeuille, Kyan Moseng, Kingston Crosby, Jaxton Hastad. Fourth row: Brayden Tjaden, Eli Olson, Landon Malecek, Ryker Gruwell, Laiken Johnson-Crosby, Ryder Kittelson. Back row: Cory Larson, Kevin Brent, Keifer Stratmoen, Jordan Wager, Justin Wager, Hank Ireland, Terry White, Preston Schwegel

DAWSON — Coming off a subsection title and a 10-win season, the Dawson-Boyd football team has to rebuild their team from a lot of seniors graduating last year. Their season ended in heartbreaking in the playoff semifinal on a last-second catch by Brayson Boike who couldn’t get a foot down to advance against the Lakeview Lakers.

Head coach Cory Larson has been coaching the program for the last 22 years and knows that he will have to practice patience with this new team coming in this year with all of the seniors leaving.

“Last year, I think we had a senior class returning and a lot of those kids had experience,” Larson said. “There were a couple of kids that were freshman and sophomores that played but our senior class last year made up 18 of 22 positions. Now flip it to this year, we don’t have that much experience coming back. So we’re going to have a young group and time will tell to see how fast they can acclimate themselves. A lot of these kids that don’t have varsity experience will have to possibly start on both sides of the ball. We’re going to have to rely on a lot of underclassmen to fill spots for us.”

Two of the main positions that Larson will have to fill are his starting quarterback Keegon Wicht, who has since graduated, and Holt Larson, who has also graduated. He spoke on those two main positions to be replaced and added a couple of more players who could break this year

“Kameron Sather may be a guy that can surprise some people as he is our leading candidate to be our starting running back,” Larson said. Gunner Liebl is probably going to be our starting QB, we like what we have seen in practice over the summer. Position-wise there are four or five guys that were looking to make a jump. All of a matter how quickly they get up to speed. Gunner Olson has had a really good off-season. Parker Bothun is coming back as one of the seniors we have coming back and looking forward to seeing how he develops as a senior leader.”

Along with Bothun, Boike will be returning for his junior season and look to grow as a receiver and a cornerback in this offense. Drew Hjemeland could be another key factor on offense giving another tall target at wide receiver with Boike.

Some of the favorite games from last year’s squad was the epic comeback against the eventual state-champion Minneota Vikings. After spotting Minneota 14 points in half one, Dawson-Boyd scored the next 22 points while the defense forced three second-half interceptions. Despite the scoring outburst the Vikings stayed close and would score with an opportunity to tie the game in the fourth quarter. The Blackjacks stopped them and handed them their second loss of the season.

Another favorite game of Dawson-Boyd was the playoffs semifinal against the Lakeview Lakers. Both teams made big plays throughout the game and it was a back-and-forth tilt. Larson spoke on these two games.

“Week 8 game versus Minneota was my favorite game because we were down at half 14-0,” Larson said. ” Then we went up to 22-14 and then they scored. We had to stop them to win the sub-district. The other game was the Lakeview playoff game. That was crazy as well and those were some big plays made there by both teams. Came down to the very last play, was a great game to be a part of.”

The challenge for the Blackjacks will be establishing some depth and seeing how many players will adapt to new roles in the 23-24 season.

“We never really try to set expectations about wins or losses,” Larson said. ” It is about being the best that we can possibly be. Be better than you were the day before. We are trying to acquire depth and I think depth last year was an issue. We have been focusing on some of the basic things for football so far and in the next couple of weeks we will increase our workload more.”

The Dawson-Boyd Blackjacks football team will open its football slate on the road against the section 3A runner-up, the Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers on Thursday, Aug. 31st.

Kickoff is slated at 7 p.m.