Hawley Fitting New Pieces into the Backfield for 2018

Nuggets prep for season opener with Mahnomen/Waubun.

HAWLEY, Minn. — The high school football season is a little over a week away for Hawley high school. The Nuggets only loss last season was to the Barnesville Trojans in the section title game.

Hawley has a few key spots to fill from last season’s squad.

“Donny was a great running back,” senior Jacob Vetter said. “Obviously everyone knows who Donny was.”

Gone is star running back Donny Loegering from last year’s Hawley team, but the Nuggets have a plan for this season’s backfield.

“We don’t expect kids to do what he did,” head coach Peder Naatz said. “It is just a matter of giving them an opportunity to be themselves and make a name for themselves.”

Senior Trayton Cossette is expected to step into the lead running back role.

“He maybe won’t fill Donny’s shoes but he will be right up there with him,” senior Chase Libak stated.

“Trayton definitely brings a different element to our team,” Vetter said. “He is really fast and he works really hard. I think he is going to have a breakout year.”

Hawley is also trying to fill the quarterback position for 2018. Jacob Vetter is still working his way back to 100 percent after tearing his ACL and meniscus in last season’s section title game. So the nuggets have been searching for a temporary solution.

“I think we found that in Chase Libak,” Naatz said.

For the first few games of the season Libak will transition from wide receiver to quarterback for the Nuggets.

“I just do what I need to do and not mess up,” Libak said. “I just have to keep it good until Jake can come back.”

“I think it says a lot about him,” Vetter said. “He is actually doing really well at the quarterback spot. I’m glad he stepped up.”

“It is kind of like what our coach said in one of our earlier practices, ‘Everybody has a role on the team and they just have to buy into that and do whatever they need to do in their role to help the team as a whole,'” Libak stated.

The Nuggets first game is August 30th against newly formed Mahnomen/Waubun.