Coupeville Sports

The football future for Wolf freshman quarterback Dalton Martin (top left) is so bright, his younger brother can’t bear to look.

There is no better scouting report than that which comes from the players on your own team.

With the current Coupeville High School football team, senior Caleb Valko is one of the studs, joining fellow linemen Anthony Maggio and Nick Streubel as the BMOCs. He’s out front — sometimes literally, as the line drives forward, opening holes for Jake Tumblin, Danny Savalza, Brett Arnold and Co.

So who better to ruminate on the future of Wolf football than one of the current leaders of the squad? We defer to Mr. Valko, who was taking a break from looking at the college football offers he had just received (Pacific Lutheran, Northwestern and Westminster) to opine on the state of freshman in the program, a state that appears to be pretty darn good.

Dalton Martin is a beastly QB for how young he is. He still has tons of room to mature and grow, but he will be better than most in these upcoming years with the cannon and speed he already has.

Wiley Hesselgrave … I don’t even know why, but he likes hanging with the big dogs. He enjoys going up and hitting me and Nick, sometimes even both of us at the same time!! That can only build character. He is already a freakishly good athlete and I can’t wait to see him his junior or senior year.

Cole Payne is starting to get it. When he started I didn’t expect much out of him, but he has gotten so much stronger and faster since our preseason camp and I expect nothing less than an elite JV season this year.

Dominic Ellis and Lathom Kelley are both very solid runners for being only 13 or 14 years old. Those kids might have to step up a little more than they already have to play some swing, but they are also doing great.

Jake and Josh Lord and Austin Kirch are the meat of the freshmen class. They come out every day and grind with the big boys like Oscar Liquidano and Carson Risner. And it’s not easy. I have to give major props to those kids for sticking with it and getting better every day.

Ian Buie is a lengthy tight end that will have fun enjoying his reach advantage this year over all those small JV kids. He, as far as I have seen, is side by side with these other kids. Great potential and talent.

Those are the ones off the top of my head. I think I got em all.

And then Mr. Valko was gone, leaving behind a depth chart and his binoculars, having returned to the gridiron to show all those young turks how the big boys do work.