Thursday, March 28, 2024

Johansen named new head football coach for Manson

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MANSON - The calendar might say July, but it is never too early to talk about the upcoming football season, especially since the Manson Trojan football program has a new coach at the helm after Scott Ward stepped down earlier this spring.
 
His name is Joey Johansen, a 26-year old former graduate of Pateros High School who was the assistant football coach for Cascade High School.
 
If the Johansen name sounds familiar, aside from graduating from Pateros, Joey’s brother, Jake Johansen is the head football coach at Brewster. As you would imagine, the transition already has Joey salivating over the chance to face his brother at least once a year.

 “It’s a rare opportunity to match up against your brother while going head to head as coaches,” Johansen said. “It will also be our last league game of the year in addition to Manson’s senior night. It’s bound to be a great game.”

Although Joey has bounced ideas off his brother for the past seven years, he isn’t going to show too much of his hand, confidently stated that he “looks forward to taking home the win over Brewster this year.”

Also with spring practices completed, Johansen is confident the team will have a good year.

 “I can’t wait, I told the guys we have to have fun with the process and that the summer will show results come fall,” Johansen said. “I’m excited for those guys to get in the game so I’m trying to get them focused on putting work in the weight room and this summer. I can’t wait to coach my first varsity football game.”

 Although Johansen lost a bevy of players, including a good amount of the skill positions from last year’s roster, he remains confident he has a group of guys that he’ll be able to plug and play in different positions each week.

 “Spencer (Ward) was a game changer and Bo (Charlton) was a confident quarterback, but we have a good group of juniors and seniors that will help us out a lot like Joe Strecker, Eduardo Escalera and Zach Serafini, who was an honorable mention on defense last year.”

 It’s still early in the season, but as of now, Johansen has junior Avery Thompson penciled in at starting quarterback .

 “Right now, after spring ball and scrimmages Avery Thomspson is the guy. However, I’m hoping Serafini will make it a battle between the two (of them),” Johansen stated. “But Avery has shown a lot and I like his attitude.”

 As far as game plan, Johansen said he doesn’t want to stray to far from the Manson’s typical ground-and-pound type of offense, but has no problem airing the ball out either.

 “I want to have balance, and keep teams on their heels.” Johansen said. “I thought we would keep the ball on the ground but Avery took lead and we were throwing the ball better than we were running. That’s hard to do in high school since it’s not every day that you can get a kid that throws the ball good. We returned four of five starters on the offensive line so I think we can do either one. We don’t have a kid that is a lights out game changer at the moment, but our strength will be a team concept.”

The Manson Trojans get their regular season kicked off on the road against Oroville on Friday, Sept. 9.

Zach Johnson can be reached at lcmeditor@gmail.com or (509) 682-2213
 

Manson High School Football, Manson new football coach, Manson High School

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