Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
After several large senior classes, the Oak Harbor football team will be young this year, but 19th-year head coach Mike May is excited to see what those guys can do with the opportunity.
“This has been a team where us as coaches enjoy coming to practice every day because they're so coachable,” he said. “Since there's so many new faces and so many young guys, they've just been very focused in practice, kind of just staying in the moment working to get better each day. I feel like a lot of teams are overlooking us right now because we’ve lost some really good senior classes in a row. I’m just looking forward to what these guys can do given the opportunity they're going to have this year.”
The Rockets finished 9-3 overall last year, including a 5-2 finish in NBC play after back-to-back league titles. Incredibly, the program graduated eight all-conference players from that squad: First Team All-NBC selections Wyatt Augsburger (WR/DB), Rydar Lindsay (OG), Alex Rife (OT), Blake Nickel (RB), Garret Perkins (DE), Isaac Schulte (OT), Cooper Schultz (DB) and Travis Bouyer (LB/TE).
Bouyer was a four-year running back. Augsburger is now competing in track and field at Ashland. Schultz is playing baseball for Tiffin, and Schulte is on the University of Indianapolis football team. His departure means the Rockets lost three offensive linemen along with Rife and Lindsay.
“We're going to be young,” May said. “We're going to be as young as we've been for a while. We have a smaller senior class with 10 guys this year, and four of them are returning starters, so we'll be relying on them to provide some leadership. We have a lot of competition going on right now between seniors, juniors and sophomores, so there’s a lot of open positions on both sides of the ball.”
Returning all-conference starters include first team linebacker Micah Miller and honorable mention defensive back Braxtin Witt. Miller will start at tailback this year, and Witt will see time at wide receiver. That duo will be joined by fellow senior starters Henry Noble on the offensive line and Matthew Hubans at linebacker and fullback.
“The biggest thing I want to see from our team right now is how we handle adversity,” May said. “We've had some big senior classes come through the last four, five years or so, and we've always had a lot of returning starters. Those guys had a lot of game experience. Since we'll be so young, we'll have a number of guys starting that haven't been in those Friday night pressure situations. The main thing is just having those seniors lead us through those situations when we face adversity.”
Other top returners include juniors Bryar Myerholtz (OL/DL), Hudson Lindsay (OL) and Brennan Butzin (QB), as well as sophomore Preston Bickelhaupt, who started the last three or four games at defensive back last season.
The Rockets, which return five starters on offense and four on defense, will also feature some talented young players, including juniors Everett Bolander and Austin Torres, who will both see time on the offensive and defensive lines. Sophomore Max Barr has also had a really good summer according to May, who sees him potentially starting at both wide receiver and defensive back.
“We need to build depth at our skill positions, at wide receiver especially,” May said. “We’ll really need to build some depth at defensive back. Our team is fairly linemen heavy, and we feel like we have pretty good depth up front and that we’ll be able to rotate a lot of guys on the defensive line. But at defensive back, we're searching for depth.”
The youthful nature of Oak Harbor this year is something the program hasn’t seen in a while. May expects a lot of competition and for those seniors to lead by example.
“All the seniors are leaders, obviously, just by being seniors,” he said. “We want them to be positive influences on our football team, especially those guys that have the playing experience, that have been under the lights and in tough situations.”
While the team is as young as it has been in a while, May said his team is deeper than they have been in a long time on the offensive and defensive lines despite losing several key guys.
“We have a lot of guys who have kind of flown under the radar because we've had some really good senior classes come through,” he said. “We've got some guys that nobody really knows about yet but are talented and have been working hard. I’m pretty excited about where we're at right now heading into the season.”
