ARTHUR, Ill. (WAND) -- ALAH for the last three seasons has finished in the top two of Lincoln Prairie conference and they look to return to the top spot this year.
They said heading into their 2025 campaign the depth at each position will be key and beign mentally tough every practice and game.
"Honestly, it's just going to be about everyone buying into their role because we're going to have a lot of guys playing, you know, we're not going to have some guys playing the whole game," Ryan Jefferson, Head Coach, said. "So they just got to really be able to to trust each other, trust the coaches and buy into their role. And if they can do that, I feel like, this this team has a long way that they can go."
"You have to be you have to be confident in your team. You can't doubt yourself at all. You have to have a strong mind," Easton Frederick, Senior Running Back, said. "You have to know that you're going to win. You have to really just trust your teammates, that you can come together and just bring a win."
While they have some new faces on the offensive line they do have their returning quarterback senior Cruz Hale, who is ready to take what he learned from past captains to help the team.
"Last year I played quarterback, but now this year, I'm really embracing kind of the quarterback spot and also the senior spot chance to be that really the team captain that I kind of looked up to that when I was a freshman because we had really good team captains and leaders, so I kind of had some learning experiences from them," Hale said.Â
As for the identity of the team Coach Jefferson said it's the same as teh last couple years just with new play makers.
"Speed, you know, we've I feel like that's when something been something that we've been pretty prideful on the last several years is, the speed of all of our players," Jefferson said. "And a lot of that comes from, you know, our track program is really taken off to, but we just have our we have a lot of speed. Our defense is a lot faster, which I think is going to be, key. We lost some size, but again, just our overall speed and athleticism and our depth is going to those are some some key factors for our team this year."
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