By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Clarkston Varsity Football is making its final preparations with the season opener set for this Friday against Northville in the Battle of the Big House, 7 p.m.
Senior co-captains Brody Kosin and Desman Stephens II shared they are ready.
“With the experience we had last year, we filled the spots we lost, obviously our running back and quarterback,” Kosin said. “We filled those spots and will come out pretty solid. Northville has a new head coach and we watched scrimmage on them. We are looking pretty solid in the matchups we have.”
He added one of the strengths going into the game is the defensive line.
“Defense is pretty solid this year,” Kosin said, adding the receivers are very good this year as well. “We have Des, Colin (Kortman), Ryan Rector and Brady Beck in that mix, too. Our receiver core is pretty solid.”
“As long as we compete and everyone does their job, we should be good,” Stephens said.
Another strength includes the experience the Wolves have coming back.
“We have a bunch of seniors coming back and filling out spots they started at last year,” Stephens said. “We have a ton of experience coming back and a strong running back, too.”
Justin Pintar, going into his second year as head coach, shared Northville had a lot of success last season with eight wins and have a lot of players returning.
“It’s certainly not a game we are going to take lightly,” he said. “That said we feel very good about the guys we have back. We’re very deep in our skilled positions, and I think in the scrimmage (against Canton on August 16) we saw some good things from our offensive line.”
The Wolves also return after a successful run in 2022, going 10-3 and making it to the MHSAA Division 1 Semifinal against Caledonia.
“I think everybody took that game to heart,” Brody said. “It still hurts everybody inside making it that far and losing in the semifinal game. I think the drive for this year makes it ten times as hard. They want to compete even harder to get past the semifinals and hopefully make it to the state finals.”
“This off season we vamped up a little bit,” Stephens added. “We took it to the next level getting everyone in there, doing multiple speed trainings and really bring the team together more during the off season.”
Kickoff at the University of Michigan Stadium, 1201 South Main Street, Ann Arbor, is 7 p.m. Clarkston has played in the Battle at the Big House since the event started in 2016.
“I am excited to see what we have this year,” said Kosin. “Our captains are going to take control of the team. We are going to be in good hands this year to win and hopefully get past semifinals to make states this year.”