WHITEHALL — For 10 weeks last year, the Whitehall football team lived up to sky-high expectations, rolling through the regular season unbeaten and easily winning a first-round playoff game. It all came crashing down around them in the district finals, when everything that could go wrong did and the Vikings were stunned by Big Rapids when the Cardinals blocked a potential game-winning field goal attempt.
A lot of skill talent from that team is now graduated - Kyle Stratton, Trannon Aylor, Malcolm Earvin and Darnell Mack are just a few of the departed luminaries - but Vikings’ coach Tony Sigmon isn’t setting his sights any lower.
“People can act like football is over, and the world is over, but we’re as excited about this year as we have been any other year,” Sigmon said.
The confidence is high, and it’s a confidence Sigmon feels his team has earned through its offseason work.
“That wasn’t because we did something on a Monday,” Sigmon said of his team’s belief in itself. “That’s over days and weeks and months of really working and getting where we need to be...This has been a very fun (first) week of football, probably some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
Two big reasons for optimism are on offense, where the Vikings come armed with something they didn’t have last year - a seasoned, veteran front line. Three starters are back, including all-conference player Jack Ambrose and honorable mention player Connor Nash. Parker Mott, the team’s leading tackler last year on defense, takes up a third spot. The other two positions will be filled by players who bring more size than the departed seniors - Carter Munroe, Jamison Jeffery and Payton Ossenfort are vying for those two spots.
That should make life easier for Camden Thompson, who will play quarterback after two seasons at wide receiver, where he led the team in receptions, with 36, and caught eight touchdowns. He’s worked with assistant coach and former Vikings’ signal-caller Casey Huizenga to improve his footwork in anticipation of his new duties.
“He’s throwing a much more consistent ball,” Sigmon said. “He’s just a dynamic athlete.”
Thompson, of course, is a second good reason for optimism. A three-sport star, Thompson is committed to Western Michigan, where he plans to play both football and basketball. He took the snaps for an unbeaten Whitehall JV team that played a rugged schedule back in his freshman year of 2021 and backed up Stratton last year. There were opportunities to play him more under center in mop-up duty in 2023, but Sigmon assumed if he put a 6-5 super-athlete at quarterback in supposed mop-up duty, it would’ve raised more eyebrows than just leaving Stratton in.
“(Thompson) is more ready than he knows (to play quarterback),” Sigmon said. “Watching him move, there’s a level of competitiveness and aggressiveness, and it makes him very attractive as a football player.”
The Vikings will also be armed with the latest two in what’s been an assembly line of wrestling stars at running back during Sigmon’s tenure. Ryan Goodrich, who got some time last year, steps into the role Darnell Mack previously held, and Gavin Craner, a state champion wrestler who transferred from Belding, has also played the position.
“They’re both seniors,” Sigmon said. “I think, at some point, one of them is just going to explode, and which one that is, I don’t know. Both of them, their potential is astronomical.”
Mott anchors the defensive unit, and Whitehall feels good about the new crop of athletes in line to fill the gaps that several graduated stars left behind. The work in the weight room has helped; Sigmon said the program is up to four 1,000-pound lifters, a total generally earned through a combination of bench press, squatting and deadlifts.
The Vikings have traditionally scheduled tough under Sigmon, but they’re taking it up even another notch this year. In addition to another matchup with perennial power Unity Christian, Whitehall is taking on 2023 regional champions Portland and Zeeland West, the latter at home. Sigmon said this is probably the toughest schedule his Vikings have ever tackled.
“We could be a very good football team, but we might be in serious dogfights,” Sigmon said.
The West Michigan Conference Lakes won’t be easy, either, with Montague and Ludington both slated to be improved. Sigmon also expects big things, whether it starts this year or in the future, from Orchard View and new coach Aaron James, previously Mona Shores’ offensive coordinator.
The Vikings know others may be looking at this year as an opportunity to knock them back after a terrific run over the past few seasons. It’s their job to show that while the cast of characters has changed, the results won’t.
“We had a really exceptional year, really, two or three years, and I think everyone’s really waiting to see how we respond now,” Sigmon said. “We’ll see how it all plays out.”
