We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
2016 Harlem Wildcat Football Team
Kelly Mills returns for his second season at the helm of the Harlem Wildcat football team.
A season ago Mills fielded a very young team and began the season with just 16 kids on the roster.
"We were young, I started a number of freshman and sophomores who had never played football before. We didn't have any depth on the line and were put in a tough situation there," said head coach Kelly Mills.
This fall the atmosphere coming in is completely different. The Wildcats are much more experienced and are led by a solid senior class.
Senior Reece Hutton was an All-State selection on offense and defense, senior Damon Adams was an All-Conference performer on both sides of the ball and senior Corbin Brockie earned All-Conference recognition for his efforts on the defensive side of the ball.
As young as the Wildcats were a season ago they are a vastly different team this fall. The atmosphere at practice is positive, upbeat and optimistic, a new direction for the program has taken hold.
When Mills took to the practice field for the first time last fall he had 16 athletes, this fall a much different story.
"I expect us to be improved from last year; I can't say we will win more games, but we hope to. Our numbers have doubled since last year, as we have 34 out for football. From a strictly numbers perspective, we should be better because of more depth," added Mills.
Seniors graduating and holes to fill is something every team has to face at the start of the season however the Wildcats find themselves in a unique situation, they return more experience.
"We also only lost 3 seniors from last year's team and have an All-State player in Reece Hutton back, as well as two 2nd Team All-Conference players in Damon Adams and Corbin Brockie. Our QB, Tevin Messerly, is also back. We have a good mix of young guys and returners from last year. Right now we are stressing being competitive; we have to learn to compete in all aspects of the game," said Mills.
After going winless a season ago, the Wildcats expect a better season as far as wins and losses go but Mills understands the game is much bigger than that, "To me football is a direct reflection of life; there are struggles, injuries, sickness, joy and loss. You have to overcome the obstacles in front of you; you get knocked down, and have to get back up again. It's not necessarily the score that is important at the end, but how you played the game."
The team this fall consists of eleven freshman, six sophomores, eight juniors and nine seniors.
Seniors include Darrius Kulbeck, KeyShawn Skidmore, Quintin Snow, Reece Hutton, Hollin Fox, Micah Bullinsight, Corbin Brockie, Damon Admas and Tyuss Hammett.
Juniors include Tevin Messerly, Gavin Horn, Adrian Kulbeck, Curtis Humphreys, Damian Schuhmacher, Daniel Rasmussen, Morgan Doney and Noah Lawrence.
Sophomores are Hunter Gray, James LittlePlume, JayJ Ball-King, Kurt Calvert, Lane Allen and Zane Fox.
Freshman are Brandon Alcorn, Tag Devaney, Tyree Doney, Clinton Brown, Curtis Healy, Elliot Iwen, Randall Brookie, Sonny Gray, Tim Healy and Truth Brockie.
Hutton had a fine junior season earning All-State Honors on both sides of the ball. Adams and Brockie also add solid leadership to the team.
"I feel like we are going to do a lot better this year, we only lost three starters/seniors. This year we have seven or eight seniors, we have lot of returning starting linemen and we return our starting backfield so I feel like we're going to do a lot better than last year," said Hutton.
All three expressed major confidence in the younger players, "We have good young talent coming up," said Adams. "We brought up some good freshman and the sophomores are starting to come around," added Hutton.
Team unity is always important, "I hope we all stay together this year, and have fun. That's the most important part I think. Team Unity. It's our last year, I just hope we enjoy it," said Brockie.
The team seems to be much more comfortable in the direction they are headed, "Last year we started out with a new offense and this year we're more use to the offense so we should be able to do better this year," said Adams.
As far as what the three expect from themselves this fall, "We'll have to see, we still don't know what our teams going to be able to do, we still have a lot of kids who aren't quite sure of themselves," said Hutton. "I just hope we have fun this year," concluded both Brockie and Adams.
The team will begin play September 2 when they will welcome the Shelby Coyotes of the District 2B to town.
The two teams squared off a season ago in Shelby to start the season and the Coyotes got the best of things, but this is a new season, "It will be a fairly even game I feel. We should start with a bigger team, last year when we played Shelby we showed up with like 18 kids, and now we show up with 24-25 for this first game," stated Hutton.
Harlem will then travel to Rocky Boy to face the Stars on September 9th. September 16th will have the Wildcats back home against the Cut Bank Wolves.
The team will play its first of four conference clashes in Wolf Point on September 23rd. Homecoming will take place the following week against the Poplar Indians on September 30th. The team will the take on the Scotties in Glasgow October 7th before closing out the schedule with their home finale October 14th. The team will conclude the regular season in Conrad October 21st.
The Class B playoffs begin on Saturday, October 29th with first round action. Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds will follow each Saturday with the State Championship to be played on Friday, November 19th.
The top two teams from the District 2B will advance to the post season.
