Wolverines focus on speed and O-Line experience Heading into 2024 season

The Crivitz Wolverines have taken to the practice field and have begun to rebuild their gridiron squad for the 2024 football season. It has been a bit on the warm side entering the official practice days of the WIAA football season but last Friday the heat dialed down and the Wolverines enjoyed a cool morning practice after a night camped out at the football field that saw the guys join together for some team building activities that included  a late night bag toss tournament.

Last season the Wolverines found themselves in the mix in the Northwoods football conference ending the season at 500 with a 5-5 final readout. After starting the season with a 46-27 loss to Chilton the Wolverines went on a three week tear shutting down Shiocton 13-0, then cross town rival Coleman 36-34. The three week win streak was capped by a 47-25 win over Clintonville. 

Behind head coach Matthew Bernier, who is in his 10th year as head coach, and assistant coaches Roman Miller, Gerrid MacNeil, Ray Sellen, Parker De Los Santos, Scott Doyen and Matt Robinson, Crivitz will be looking to start the season strong and employ a physically smaller crew that according to Bernier has plenty of speed to bring to the field. Along with the speed of the team the Wolverines will be returning with an experienced offensive line that will look to set the tone in the trenches.

“We won’t have a lot of size, but we do have some speed we hope to utilize,” said Bernier. “We also are returning 4 starting offensive lineman from last season and will be looking for those guys to set the tempo of our offense.”

Crivitz’s campaign this year will be missing some notable seniors from last year including, TJ Mueller, Tegan Werner, Kaden Klaver, Austin VanDeWalle and Jackson Flowers. All which were major contributors to the Wolverines gridiron efforts.

“We have had good efforts so far and great attitude out here,” said Bernier. “We had a lot of sophomores start and play for us last year and we are going to lean heavily on those guys as juniors this season to step up to fill those voids left by our graduating seniors. Tegan and T.J. were two of our big guys that we had to replace. We don’t try to be those guys, we try to be ourselves. But the guys know they need to step up and fill those potions well to give ourselves a chance to win.”

Some of the returning letter winners and prospects for the Wolverines include Brody MacNeil, Ryan Kaus, Devon Weiss, Kade Thoma, Eric Corrigan, Austin Kaminski, Reece Schad, Colton Tarmann, Stephan Allard, Logan Marvin, Evan Orlando, Hank Watson and Zachary Zimmer

“We are going to have to work hard every day we come here. Everyone in the conference wants to win the conference title. Most years everyone in capable of doing it but we know we have to bring it every day we come to practice and work on the small things and push each other in practice. We need to always work more on the small things and push each other in practice so we always play better each game.”