FARWELL-- In just their second year in the 8-man ranks, the Farwell Eagles had an incredible 7-2 season. They started the season off strong, going 7-0 and dropping their final two contests of the season. Now, they’ll have to find a way to keep last season’s momentum that led the Eagles to their best record since 1998.
“They’re going to give us everything we got every single week, and kind of playing each play like it’s your last, especially with the injuries and things we had last year, they saw a lot of seniors and things go out. And that was the end of their football playing career. So, we really focused on taking each play in each rep, like it’s the last one you’re going to have,” head coach Travis Waddell said.
The Eagles’ program preaches a ‘next man up’ mentality, and it proved them well last season.
“We’ll do the same thing [as last season], just try to know our jobs as best we can and trust one another to do that job when it comes time,” senior James Segraves-Grant said.
This year, Farwell returns six total starters, three on offense, and three on defense.
“We’re not big, we’re a lot smaller team, but we’re hoping to be a lot faster than teams before us. And we’re going to have to be a lot quicker and more conditioned than previous Farwell teams,” junior Wyatt VanBuskirk said.
Last season was Farwell’s first full 8-man season, and their 7-2 record would have earned them a playoff berth. However, their school’s enrollment numbers were too high to join the 8-man brackets.
This year, they’ll run into that same enrollment issue again. Fortunately, new to the team this year is a conference.
Farwell has been assigned to the Central Michigan 8-Man Football Conference-Blue. Their conference opponents now include Blanchard Montabella, Breckenridge, Carson City-Crystal, Coleman, Merrill, and St. Charles.
“We’re just going to control we can control we’re going to play the games that we can play… So, we’re just going to focus on competing within our conference each and every week,” Waddell said.
And while the Eagles look forward to conference play in the coming season, they also look forward to proving to their community that last year’s 7-2 record wasn’t just luck.
“We want to show Farwell that it wasn’t just a fluke that we had one great year. I want to have another great season,” VanBuskirk said.
Farwell will kick off their 2023 campaign on their home field against Webberville on the 25th.