The Aplington-Parkersburg football team is a week into preseason practices, and is setting up to pick up where it left off on offense. Benny Waller is back at quarterback for his senior season after starting last year. While he’ll look to expand his playmaking abilities after completing 40 percent of passes last year, first-year Head Coach Jeff Pikna says Waller has developed strong leadership traits which are synonymous with being a starting quarterback.
“What I’ve seen him do from the start of the summer to now is just taking on a leadership role, and really trying to be a leader and do the positive and right things,” Pikna says. “We recently had captains voted on by the players, and he was a unanimous vote. So they really look up to him. They look to him for guidance, and he’s making sure that he understands that people look to him and follow him and that he’s portraying the right behaviors, and doing things the way we expect them to be done.”
In the ground game, three running backs who recorded significant carries last year are back. Mason Pruisner enters his sophomore year after leading the team with 571 rushing yards last year. Creyton Eberhart and Devan Eberhart each made key contributions at running back to provide depth, and are back for their senior and sophomore seasons.
“Those guys are a key piece to our run game. We have a couple other guys that will rotate in there depending on the set that we’re in. But we have an older line, so we’re pretty excited about what those guys are able to do. Hopefully they create a lot of opportunities for us to explore options in that run game.”
They’ll begin the season on Friday, August 29 at Grundy Center.
