STURGIS, SD (KOTA) – Almost every season that Sturgis football coach Chris Koletzky has been at the helm, the Scoopers have improved.
Last season, in his ninth year as head coach, he led the team to the best finish of his tenure. They finished 6-3 and were one final stop away from defeating Huron for a 7-2 finish.
“Since Koletzky has been here, everything is coming together little by little. Last year was obviously our best year,” said Dalyn Dschaak, senior tight end at Sturgis. “It felt like a culture was emerging.”
Although Koletzky has turned the Sturgis program around over the past decade, he leaves the leadership of the team to his superiors.
“It’s their team,” Koletzky said. “Our culture and expectations were hopefully built by them, and then they reflect that in our team.”
The Scoopers will be without their graduating senior Aidan Hedderman this year. He brought with him intangible values that simply cannot be taught.
In his place, senior Carter Williams will be the starting quarterback this season.
“Aidan Hedderman is irreplaceable, especially not with his athletic ability alone,” Koletzky said. “We’ll probably have to rely a little more on the running game of our running back.”
“Carter came in as a freshman and sat behind Owen Cass and then Aidan Hedderman, both of whom were really good quarterbacks,” Dschaak said. “He got to sit and learn in a really good quarterback room, on a team that gets better every year. We just tell him, ‘You’re good enough to be here.'”
Sturgis’ youth soccer program has contributed to recent success at the high school level. Koletzky gets kids started at a young age, and by the time they reach 9th grade, they’re ready to make an impact.
“These kids are coming out of our youth camps now,” Koletzky said. “We do our tackling progressions, they know exactly what to expect, and so you see a faster development in terms of technique and stuff.”
The Scoopers are no longer part of the Black Hills Conference, meaning they won’t play St. Thomas More or Belle Fourche, but that won’t get in the way of their season goal of defeating an East River opponent.
“We haven’t won, I don’t think we’ve won a game in East River since 2006 or something, which is crazy,” Dschaak said. “It’s been a long time and another big goal this year is to go to East River and win a game.”
Sturgis opens the season on August 30 in Brookings.
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