Ryan Skogen (right) tries to elude Spencer Stadele during an MH-B practice last week. News Publishing Co. photo by Mary Langenfeld

MH-B is thinking big

After sharing the league title in 2021, Vikings set sights high again

It's something a motivational speaker might say. Or something that might be plastered on the wall in a locker room.  

Cliché as it may be, though, it rings true in the Mount Horeb-Barneveld football program.

“Teams don't win championships, families do,” MH-B senior running back Tyler Buechner said of the Vikings' culture. “I feel like you've got to become a family before you can start winning on the football field.”

That attitude carried the Vikings, winners of just one game in each of the two previous seasons, to a share of the Badger Small Conference championship last year prior to a 28-21 loss to Onalaska in the first round of the WIAA Division 3 playoffs.

And it's an attitude they're leaning on — in addition to their talented roster — in the hopes of yet another successful campaign this season.

Vikings' coach Bret St. Arnauld spoke glowingly about this fall's team, highlighted by their depth, speed and athleticism. But when asked to summarize what most excites him, St. Arnauld paused for a moment, then deviated from X’s and O’s and echoed Buechner's sentiments.

“Their care and love for each other,” the coach said. “They truly care about each other — you can just tell that they're there for each other.

“I think the W’s come when you care about somebody more than you care about yourself, and I think that's what this team is. This team is a team that's very selfless. They don't care who gets the credit as long as we win.”

And win they intend to do.

Buechner is one of the linchpins, returning after rushing for 917 yards (5.1 yards per carry) and 11 touchdowns en route to earning second-team All-Badger Small accolades.

But he's far from the only offensive threat the Vikings will employ.

Joining him in the backfield is Trenton Owens, a junior who rushed for 417 yards (4.6 yards per carry) in 2021.

Running back/wide receiver combo Chris Kiel, the starting running back on JV a year ago before suffering a season-ending collarbone injury, is also expected to be a major contributor.

"Unbelievably fast," St. Arnauld said of Kiel.

Another receiving threat will be LJ Ellestad, who caught 17 passes for 277 yards and three TDs on his way to honorable mention All-Badger Small honors last year as a sophomore.

“He's explosive,” St. Arnauld said of Ellestad. “He's gotten way faster in the offseason.”

The biggest X-factor, though, might just be senior Ethan Tranel, a 6-foot-2 target who joined the team in Week 3 last year — there was a vote among the seniors allowing him to come onboard so late in the season — and got better and better as the year progressed.

His big moment came in the playoffs. And it proved to be a springboard.

"He caught a ball on fourth down in triple coverage. Now throughout all summer and the offseason -- seven-on-sevens -- he's been unbelievable," St. Arnauld said of Tranel.
With all that speed and skill in the backfield and on the perimeter, it's no small job to be the quarterback for the Vikings. His is not a turn-and-hand-it-off-again-and-again role.

It's a big responsibility, and it will fall on the shoulders of first-year starter Kasey Helgeson.

So far, so good as far as looking the part goes.

“He's got great arm talent and with his progressions he's really getting there to the point where he's starting to feel really comfortable,” St. Arnauld said.

Paving the way for the Vikings ship on offense will be a pair of experienced offensive lineman in junior Austin Liebfried and senior Mason McNally, both honorable mention all-conference selections a year ago.

The 6-foot-5 Liebfried anchors one edge, manning left tackle, while McNally will move from center to right guard.

Taking his place as the snapper will be junior Braylon Leahy.

“The dude is a tank,” St. Arnauld said.

MH-B did have the Offensive Lineman of the Year in the Badger Small last season in senior Kian Preimesberger — he also was chosen as All-State by the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association — leaving some sizable shoes to fill this fall.

But St. Arnauld is confident in the big boys up front.

"Our linemen worked their tails off this summer going to camps,” St. Arnauld. “We can play downhill. When it comes to match-ups against certain teams, certain things are going to work better than others. But our offensive line is physical.

“We're not small by any means. And these guys are nasty. But with our athleticism — we have some good athletes on the line — it opens things for us. We can do multiple things.”

To that last point, the linemen aren't standing by idly as the running backs and wide receivers race around at practice.

They're doing their best to keep up.

“With the speed, they make you better,” McNally said. “When we do double-whistle drills where we have to run to the ball after the play's over, with guys being so fast, they're already 30 or 40 yards down field, it just makes us better. We condition in the drills, we don't condition after.”

On the other side of the ball, the Vikings are left to replace their whole defensive line.  

But while those new starters get up to speed — no pun intended, because just like on offense St. Arnauld said speed is the defense's calling card — there's a talented cast of linebackers, cornerbacks and safeties in place to pick up the slack.

The leader among them is senior Elijah Krantz, a unanimous first team all-conference choice at linebacker in 2021 after leading the team in tackles (95) to go along with six tackles for loss.

Krantz lines up at inside linebacker and alongside him at outside linebacker is another all-conference returnee in Buechner, a second-teamer who had 54 tackles in 2021, including six TFLs and a forced fumble. He also had three interceptions.  

Behind them is a talented secondary that includes honorable mention all-league picks last year in Ellestad and Owens. Both players had an interception last year and Ellestad's was a pick-six.

Junior Brooks Pernot didn't make the league's postseason awards list in 2021, but he was having a strong campaign prior to suffering a torn ACL in Week 7.

“He's just an absolute unit at safety,” St. Arnauld said. “We cannot wait to have him back — it'll be huge for us,” he added of Pernot's anticipated return in Week 3 or 4.

With five returning all-conference players at seven different positions — Buechner and Ellestad were tabbed  on both sides of the ball — the Vikings don't lack names to watch in 2022.

But it's the players around them that St. Arnauld, now entering his fifth season at the helm, thinks makes the Vikings perhaps as dangerous as they've been in years.

"This is the deepest I've felt our team is in a very long time. Deep at a lot of positions," he said. “Whatever our personnel is for that certain play, every single kid on the field could take it to the house. In my entire time that I've been here, in my five years, I don't think I've had the entire field be that much of a threat."

They're also well equipped to handle the rigors of the Badger Small, which now includes DeForest to accommodate the fact Sun Prairie split into two schools — Sun Prairie East and Sun Prairie West — and both landed in the Badger Large as part of conference realignment.

"The seniors last year really showed us the path of leadership, and how to become a good, well-rounded team and how to rely on each other as a group," Buechner said of a team that flipped the script following one-win campaigns in 2019 and in the 2020 alternate spring season played in 2021 because of the pandemic.  

“We were sick of the losing,” Krantz said of the bond that jelled last fall's team. “We wanted to turn the program back around and that's kind of what we did. We hope to keep that going.”

Despite being experienced at a lot of positions, MH-B remains young overall with only nine seniors on the roster.

So the month of August and maybe even the first part of September could be a work in progress, especially with 2021 playoff teams McFarland (5-5 overall and third in the Rock Valley at 5-2), Monroe (11-2 and the defending Rock Valley champs at 7-0)  and DeForest (9-2 and second in the Badger Large at 6-1) on the docket in Weeks 1-3.

“You go through some growing pains with any team, but we might see those growing pains with this team early on with us being so young,” St. Arnauld said. “But when it registers, I really see us being a force.”

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