by TAYLOR ELDRIDGE

• MULVANE WILDCATS

Class: 4A
League: Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail League, Division III
Head Coach: Dave Fennewald, 18th year
2008 Recap: Before the season tragedy struck the Mulvane football program and workhorse Huldon Tharp went down with a season-ending injury. In an up-and-down season, punctuated by a thrilling 33-30 win over Rose Hill to qualify for state, the Wildcats finished 5-5 overall, 2-3 in league and lost in the first round of the 4A playoffs.
2009 Schedule: 9/4 Great Bend; 9/11 Kingman; 9/18 at El Dorado; 9/25 Andover; 10/2 at Augusta; 10/9 Buhler; 10/16 Andover Central; 10/23 Trinity; 10/29 at Rose Hill.
Returning Starters: 12
5 Impact Players: QB/CB Gus Strunk (5-10, 175, Jr.); HB/LB Dylan Hagerman (5-10, 170, Sr.); C/DE Zach Burkhart (6-4, 250, Jr.); WR/FS A.J. May (5-9, 170, Sr.); G/DT Ethan Copeland (6-1, 260, Sr.); G/DE Drew Shelinbarger (5-11, 190, Jr.).

• 2009 Outlook

Mulvane will look to continue its recent high-scoring attack on offense this year. Gus Strunk will step into the quarterback job and gives the Wildcats something that was missing last year: another running threat. Strunk will bring back the QB scramble and that should open up the offense. Dylan Hagerman will be running behind what could be a dominating offensive line led by Zach Burkhart, Ethan Copeland and Drew Shelinbarger. AJ May will be another playmaker on the outside on offense playing the slot receiver. The defense returns many of the same faces. Like most 4A teams, Mulvane will have to play its players both ways. Last year the defense was out on the field for long stretches and tired quickly. The Wildcats are dedicated to taking up more clock on offense, hoping for more resting time for the D. Mulvane is once again talented this season, but a brutal district will be sure to test it late in the season. Check out THE best high school football team web site here.

10 BURNING QUESTIONS WITH HEAD COACH DAVE FENNEWALD

• That Rose Hill game last year had to be pretty emotional with the season on the line and everything that had happened leading up to that game. What was that like?

“Whenever Mulvane and Rose Hill get together, you can throw out the records from both teams and it’s just a good, healthy rivalry. Not just in football, but in basketball and in wrestling and in baseball and in track between Rose Hill and Mulvane. We were fortunate enough that night to with just a few seconds left to go in the game to throw the touchdown pass in the end zone to win it. Last year we had the two boys that were unable to play, so our kids really felt like something was apart of that that night. It was just a very emotional night for the coaches and the players. And especially being our last home game and different things along those lines.”

• Division one of the AV-CTL gets a lot of hype and deservedly so, but division three isn’t a cakewalk. How tough is it?

“I think if you just look at the whole super-league…there’s 1, 2, 3, 4 – look at how many teams go to the playoffs every year? Every division is extremely strong. Division three this year with Andover and Andover Central again and I believe Buhler is the best 4A team in the state right now. There is just a good, solid football program you’re going to see every Friday. You’re kids have to be ready to play every Friday night. It’s just a good division. And you look at division four right below us with Wellington and Andale and Rose Hill. Again, the whole league is just an outstanding league where teams have to be ready each and every week.”

• What do you guys have coming back on offense this year?

“Last year we didn’t have a real strong running game. The quarterback is a big factor in the running game. Jordan (Gosch) was more of the throwing type of quarterback. He wasn’t the type of kid that was going to threaten defenses with his running game. We think with the quarterbacks we can use this year with Gus Strunk and AJ May. Both of them have pretty decent arms that we can still throw ball with, but they also bring that quarterback run game, which in our spread game the quarterback run is a very big part of the offense. I think from that standpoint, our offense is going to be just as good as it was last year. We’re excited about our offensive lineman coming back this year. Zach Burkhart is back at center. He’s 260 pounds. We have Charlie Hansen back at offensive tackle. That’s about 250 pounds. We have Ethan Copeland back at offensive guard. He’s 265 pounds. We’re going to have one of the biggest offensive lines back since I’ve been here. And our running back, Dylan Hagerman, is back as well and we’re a one-back team. In our camps and stuff that we’ve been to so far this summer he’s looked really good and I think he’s matured at that position. So I think the strength of our team is going to be our offensive line offensively. We’re really excited about them.”

• That has to be a head coach’s dream. How important is the war in the trenches and how good do you think this line can be at that war?

“I think it can be as good as any group we’ve had. They have to have a cohesiveness. That’s one thing that you look for: five or six offensive lineman that can play well together. These kids are all good friends off the field, as well as on the field. I think that’s really important is that cohesiveness they have. And a football team is only as good offensively as their offensive line. You look at all the skill kids and throwing the ball and the great catches and the quarterback throwing for 300 yards or whatever it is. But it still boils down football is blocking and tackling. So if we can do a good job up front, we can be a pretty competitive team this year. Lots of times you look at most of the teams that win football games, whether it’s little kids, middle school, high school, college or pro are the teams that run the ball for more yards than the other team on Friday night. And that is something we have to be able to do this year. We have to be able to move the chains, control the clock. Last year we scored a lot of points. We averaged close to 30 points last year and 35 points the year before. But our offense was on the field for three, four, five plays and we’d score. And I think our defense got really tired then. I think this year we’re going to be able to move the ball through the ground more. Move the chains, keep the clock moving and sustain drives, which I think will help our defense.”

• You mentioned earlier two quarterbacks. How is that going to work? Will they split time or alternate possessions? How is that looking?

“AJ started for three years on defense and he’s also started in our four receivers as one of our slots the last couple of years. He was a quarterback through seventh, eighth and ninth grade. And he’s more of our backup this year. But in like practice, he’ll take some quarterback reps and he’ll learn the offense the same way as Gus does. In fact, when AJ was a sophomore there were times we would put him in just because of the running aspect that he brought to our offense at that time. But going into the season, we’ll look at Gus with AJ being a good, solid backup that we can use him for. Like I said, AJ started the last few years at one of the those slot positions and that’s where he’ll start this season out at.”

• What is the scouting report on Gus? How’s he looking this summer?

“The big thing with Gus is, as far as running our offense, the respect that the kids have for him in the huddle. He’s a really good leader on the field. In aspects that he is very big on building up the players around him. Telling them, ‘Good job’, ‘Congratulations’, ‘We need this block’, ‘We need a little extra time here’, ‘We need a first down here.’ He’s very good at taking charge in the huddle. And I think that a strength that a lot of quarterbacks sometimes don’t bring to the huddle is leadership. He’s just a great leader in the huddle for us. And he has a great grasp of our offense. He’s a very athletic young man. He started on the basketball team last year as a sophomore. He’s started on the baseball team since he was a freshman. So he’s a very athletic kid. He’s got a good, strong arm. He throws the deep ball very well. But the big thins is he just has a grasp of our offense. He really understands what we’re trying to do. With our offense, it’s all based on reads – whether it’s the run game or the pass game. He has to make the read. And he understands his reads and what he’s supposed to do each and every play.”

• How about on defense? What’s coming back there for you guys?

“AJ May, this will be his third year starting at free safety for us. We also return Ethan Copeland at defensive tackle and this will be Ethan’s third year starting on the defense for us as well. Dylan Hagerman was our MIKE linebacker last year, our middle linebacker and he’s returning this year at middle linebacker for us. We moved Mic Belden. He was our outside linebacker for us last year. We’re going to move him to our strong safety this year. Corbin McGuire started for us at defensive back last year and he’ll start at defensive back for us this year. Drew Shelinbarger started at nose guard for us last year and we’re going to move him to defensive end.”

• What’s the defense going to look like this year? Any changes after last year?

“We’re still going to run a 4-3 defense. We’re going to put in a couple different coverages this year. Coach (Scott) Swaney has been with me the entire 18 years I’ve been at Mulvane and does a tremendous job on our defense. He really gets them prepared each and every week. Our game plans are extremely sound defensively. We know as a coaching staff this year, to have success on Friday nights, we’re going to have to be able to stop the run. That’s something we will preach from day one to our kids. We kind of preached that during our team camp, as well as the Hutch team camp we went to this year. We’ve got to be able to stop the run. I think if you put in a little bit of attitude and set some high expectations for your kids and some goals for your kids along the lines of stopping the run, I think you can accomplish a lot of your goals then.”

• How’s the summer been for you guys? How has the team looked?

“We’ve always gone to a team camp. We’re one of the teams that has gone to a team camp for the last seven or eight years. We used to go to Pitt State, but this year we went to Hutch because it was a little bit closer. So that wasn’t anything new to us. We went to the 7-on-7 tournament they had in Derby that was put on by High School Sports The Magazine. We also continued to do our summer weightlifting program and our summer speed development program that we’ve done here in Mulvane for athletes in grades seven-through-12. Other than that, we haven’t done a lot different than we’ve done in the past. The big thing we want to do is we want August 17 to be a big thing. That first day of football – we don’t want to burn the kids out. Our kids are involved – baseball is a big thing in Mulvane. And there’s kids going to wrestling camps and basketball camps and a lot of our kids have jobs. So we’re still trying to accomplish what we need to do as a football team, but still understand they are 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids and have other commitments as well. So I think there has been a very good balance with our football team this summer, meeting the needs we have to meet and still allowing our kids to do some of the things they need to do for other jobs and sports and so forth and so on.”

• A lot of teams are going to the spread these days. Why so crazy for the spread offense?

“I just think that there is just a lot of good skill kids in our schools right now. Whether it’s Andover, or Rose Hill, or Buhler, you just got some good skill kids. And you got to put the ball in your playmaker’s hands. I think by being in the spread, that allows you to put the ball in your playmaker hands. We play like Great Bend and I think Andover Central goes up there to Blue Valley Northwest. We’re playing some 5A schools. I think by spreading it out, it gives you just a little bit of chance of competing against the big schools and the defenses you see as well. We just can’t line up and run between the tackles. A lot of our kids are playing offensive line are going to turn around and play defensive line. Then you get in a numbers game and the kids get tired and you just can’t do that. I think by going to the spread, it allows you to put the ball in your skill players’ hands, as well as neutralize some of the strengths the defense may have as well.”