Amboy/LaMoille hoping to return to playoff form

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Posted 8/23/18

AMBOY – The Amboy/LaMoille Clippers look to rebound from a 3-6 finish a year ago and eye making the high school football playoffs for the first time after three years finishing on the outside, looking in.

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Amboy/LaMoille hoping to return to playoff form

Posted

AMBOY – The Amboy/LaMoille Clippers look to rebound from a 3-6 finish a year ago and eye making the high school football playoffs for the first time after three years finishing on the outside, looking in.

A/L head coach Gary Jones enters his 25th season at the helm of the Amboy football program, having joined forces with players from LaMoille High School along the way. All told, Jones has been a member of the Amboy High School football coaching staff since 1976.

A/L’s lead running back this season will be Jake Schaver, a 5-10, 170-pound senior.

The Clippers’ starting quarterback is Mitchell McLaughlin, a 5-11, 185-pound senior. According to Jones, McLaughlin played football his first two years of high school, then opted for golf his junior year, before returning to lead the A/L offense in this, his senior season.

Amboy/LaMoille has favored the run over the pass on offense for many years, but that preference may change a bit this season.

“We’ve always been an option team through the course of a thousand years,” Jones said. “We’ve ran the option. We’ve ran the ball.

“This year, probably due to our size and other things, we have some pretty good receiver athlete-types. We’ve kind of changed our philosophy a little bit, and we’re going to try and throw the ball a little more than we have in the past. We’re kind of going to more of a spread offense.”

Jones said the Clippers could have four receivers catching a good number of passes this season.

“Marcus Wynn (5-10, 150-pound junior) has probably got the most speed that we’ve got on the outside corner. He’s from LaMoille,” said Jones. “Hunter Walzer (6-2, 180-pound senior) is a pretty good receiver. And we’ve got Logan Whelchel (5-11, 155-pound senior) out there. This is his first year out, (but) he’s a pretty good athlete.

“(Hunter) Zimmerly (6-4, 180-pound senior) is back from last year at a receiver spot. We’ve got some height there, and we’ve got some speed in our receivers.

“I think we’ve got some good skill people. Skill-wise, on the corners, we’ve got some talent. That’s what we’re trying to utilize.”

Gone from last year’s team are a number of linemen. Jones said that the team’s offensive line was probably hurt the hardest by graduation.

“I think we’ve got some work to do on our offensive line, because it’s so young,” Jones said. “We’ll probably have two sophomores starting at times on the offensive line.”

As far as that offensive line, A/L returns seniors Dorian Barlow (5-9, 180) and Maverick Lindenmeyer (6-0, 235).

“Brady Becker is back. Becker is a 6-5, 290-pound senior,” said Jones. “He’s back at lineman. He’s probably one of our key players on both sides of the ball, offensively and defensively.”

The rest of the line, according to Jones, will be juniors and sophomores.

Seniors on this year’s squad also include Hayden Montavon, a 5-11, 155-pound WR/LB, Mike Stenzel, a 6-1, 160-pound WR/DB, and Frank Piscitello, a 5-10, 225-pound OL/DL.

The Clippers play in the Northwest Upstate Illini Northwest Conference, with a season schedule very similar to a year ago, swapping home and away locations.

“Our numbers, in general, are down,” Jones said when asked about team numbers this season compared to prior years. “We’ve got 41 in the whole program. I mean, we used to run 42 kids just on the varsity alone. Now we’re down to 41 total in our entire program, (freshman to senior).”

When asked about goals for the season, Jones said, “You always want to win the conference. That has always been our philosophy in years past, to win the conference and go as far as we can in the playoffs. We haven’t reached the playoffs in the last, what, three years now. So, our goal now is, we want to get above .500, get a shot at the playoffs, maybe get to that 6-3 mark.”

Coach Jones’ teams have reached the playoffs in 13 of his 24 seasons as head coach, including a nine-year stretch from the autumns of 2002 to 2010, in which his teams compiled a record of 67-32.

A/L opens play this season at the Milledgeville Missiles on Friday, Aug. 24.

(Courtesy of Bureau County Republican)