Cloquet football coach Tom Lenarz is facing an odd situation this season. The oddity? Cloquet will play in the Sea Range Conference, which is mainly made up of AAA football teams, but the Lumberjacks will then enter the playoffs in Class AAAA.
"The conference is made up of predominantly AAA teams like International Falls and Proctor," explained Lenarz. "The state high school league bumped us back up to AAAA, but we feel the Sea Range is a great conference for us and provides us with a very competitive schedule with schools of our size."
The Lumberjacks are currently running back-to-back practices starting early in the morning with a lunch break in between.
"We typically focus on offense for one practice and then defense for the other practice, since we have so many kids who go both ways," stated Lenarz. "We spend time in each practice on special teams and a little conditioning."
Lenarz is expecting between 12-15 seniors this season with around 70 players overall coming out for the varsity and junior varsity squads.
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A key to the early part of the season is how high school teams will deal with the heat that normally comes with the latter days of August.
"The heat is always a concern, especially in the first month," mentioned Lenarz. "Football is a crazy sport because you start out with 90-degree days and end with 38-degree days. You have to adjust to all sorts of different conditions."
Those conditions challenge the mental aspect of the game for teams and times have changed in how coaches deal with the heat.
"It is tougher mentally on the kids than anything else," said Lenarz. "The days of telling kids that they don't need water are over. When it is hot we adjust our practices and make sure they drink water more often than usual. It hasn't been a problem for us because we focus on the safety of the kids first."
Cloquet opens the season on Friday, Aug. 31, at home against the Northwestern Wildcats.
"We are also hosting a six-team scrimmage in Cloquet on Saturday, Aug. 25," Lenarz added. "Teams scheduled to be here are Denfeld, Carlton, Marshall, Two Harbors and Virginia. B&B Market is putting on a lunch afterwards for the kids and it should be a great day."
