John Raffel
Sports Scene
Dan Falor is ready to get his Alma Panthers off to a fast start and set to be a major force in the high school football ranks this season.
The Panthers are coming off a playoff season in 2015 after sustaining two straight sub .500 seasons.
They won the last three games of the regular season before falling to Grand Rapids Forest Hills Eastern in the playoffs 45-14.
Alma had a preseason scrimmage and came out of it healthy, which was Falor’s main objective.
“We had some good competition with Corunna and Gaylord, we went against Houghton Lake too,” he said. “We’ve got a tough league. The Tri-Valley Central is tough. We have Freeland and Swan Valley and Chesaning; they’re always solid teams. But we’ve got a good core group of guys back, five guys starting for us when they were sophomores. It’s always nice to have senior leadership like that.”
That includes Ryan Cornejo, a linebacker/tight end.
“He’s one of our best athletes,” Falor said. “He has a couple of college offers right now, Division II offers. He’s the heart and soul of our defense and was an all-state kid at linebacker last year.”
Returning player Anthony Humm is a running back and defensive back. He and Cornejo are both two-way starters.
There’s also Troy Bastian, who is Alma’s best offensive and defensive lineman and another two-way starter. Konnor Verdrode is “another skilled guy receiver, defensive back,” Falor added.
The third three-year starter is Christian Villalobos for the offensive and defensive line.
“With those five guys, we’re solid and we have holes where they’re not,” Falor said. “We’re looking for JV guards coming up from last year to fill some of those spots. We have a couple of line position battles going on right now. We need to find a couple of linebackers. We have a good core of guys coming back. We need some of the young guys to step up for us.”
The Panthers are solid with skill players.
“We have lot of skill guys back,” Falor said. “We have a junior who came up mid-year last year who played some receiver running back for us and we expect him to fill in nicely. Our skill positions are pretty solid on offense.
“Defensively we’ve got good players on the line, as linebackers and some good DBs. We need to find those young guys to fill in all three of those areas. I feel we have guys who are capable of it.”
Falor is in his third year as head coach after records of 4-5 and 6-4. He took over for a program that was 1-7 in 2013.
“I think we’re progressing well,” he said. “I’m in my 19th year at Alma, so we’re not new. The first year we lost our first four but won four of the last five and last year ran into a buzzsaw. Our kids are hungry. They want to take that next step. It was nice making the playoffs. It’s a place where we want to be in a regular basis. Our kids kind of bought into that.”
The Panthers started last season 2-0 with 22-15 and 31-6 wins over Birch Run and Shepherd, but losses to Saginaw Swan Valley and Freeland put them at 2-2 and followed a 38-0 win over Bullock Creek. A 34-21 loss to Ovid-Elsie made it 3-3. But the three wins, including a 15-14 nail-biter over Chesaning, gave Falor and his program that playoff berth they badly need to build moment for the 2016 season.