HS Football Preview: Vikings look to break through with new, but familiar face at the helm

(ABC 6 News) — For 33 years, Vikings fans at Northwood-Kensett high school have only known Dave Capitani as the head coach. Now, it’s Trevor Hunt who will lead the team into a new era.

Trevor Hunt has spent the past three seasons at Northwood-Kensett as an assistant, now, he must take all he’s learned and apply himself as the Viking’s new head coach.
”As soon as I got here, I knew it was a place that I wanted to stay at," Hunt said. "You walk into our gym, you look at the banners up there, and you see football and football and football and football… regardless of what coaches we’ve had, it’s still the same end goal for what we’re always going for.”

Hunt takes over a crew that went 6-2 in the regular season, before losing in a close first-round playoff game to Kee last season.
Lamonte sims, vikings quarterback/cornerback

"Just be more disciplined,"Vikings quarterback/cornerback Lamonte Sims said. "Graettinger, they threw all over us, and Kee, they threw all over us. That’s one thing we really got to step up.”

”We just need to know our plays better and know how to act on defense," Vikings running back/linebacker Dante Sims said.

"Jumping snap counts is a big, big killer for us," Vikings offensive guard/linebacker Dalton Logeman said. "Just losing yards we shouldn’t have lost, just dumb penalties like that.”

The loss of major stars like Tyler Mills and Drake Tiedemann on both sides of the ball is huge, but these younger Vikings can’t wait to prove how they plan to fill in the gaps left behind, as well as prove this is still the same N.K football team their fans love…

"Everything we learned in the past three years kind of just got thrown out," Logeman said. "But at the same time, it’s kind of fun and defense is looking pretty good and we’re excited.”

”Going to be a lot of new things you’ve never seen at Northwood-Kensett before." Lamonte said.

”I have a fantastic group of assistant coaches, graduates from here who’ve played for cap," Hunt said. "They know what it takes, they know the types of things that we need to do to keep on being successful and keep it being Vikings football as it has been.”

The Vikings will open their season against Riceville, a team they beat a year ago before going down the rest of the slate., as they try to make it to the 8-man playoffs.