Football: The Ophir Miners are on a winning streak

By Fischer Genau DIGITAL MEDIA LEAD

Last year, the Manhattan Christian School’s middle school football team dealt the Ophir Middle School Miners a 55-6 beatdown in a game that was over by the end of the first quarter. It was a stinging loss, but the Miners were getting used to it. They lost every game in 2023, as well as every game the year before, and the Miners came into this season on a 730-day losing streak. But this year has been different.

When the Miners faced off against Manhattan Christian on Sept. 27, they flipped the script, beating them 48-0. The Miners have been dominant all season and hold a record of 4-0 heading into their Oct. 11 matchup with Park City Junior High where they hope to keep their streak alive.

This year’s team appears completely different from the team that was regularly losing by double digits last year, but Mark Walkup, the Miners’ new head coach, doesn’t take much credit for their newfound success. According to Walkup, a lot of it is pure luck.

“It kind of just fell in place,” Walkup said. “I don’t know how much it has to do with coaching.”

Last year, the team was very inexperienced. Many of the sixth graders had never played football before, and there were only two eighth graders on the team. The coaches, led by Scott Larsen, focused on building fundamentals, and their goal at every game wasn’t to win—it was to not quit.

“When you’re getting beat 50 to nothing, and it’s the beginning of the third quarter, you’re like, just don’t quit, we can’t let them quit,” Walkup said. “We’d be on the field like, ‘All right guys we got this, I know we’re getting beat but let’s do this, we made 10 yards last time, that was great!’”

But this year, many of the new sixth graders came with experience from playing football in the Gallatin Empire Lions Club in Bozeman, and all but two of the Miners’ former players returned to the team. The squad also swelled from 13 players to 22, which allowed the coaches to stage full scrimmages during practice, and the team added Grady Towle, a Lone Peak High School senior, as a line coach.

“He’s played a very pivotal role this year working with those linemen,” said Travis Earl, another coach for the Miners.

Sidelined from the high school team with a shoulder injury, Towle wanted to help others get better, and his efforts have paid off. The line, which last year had trouble just lining up properly and was often penalized, is now making a difference by protecting the quarterback and pressuring their opponents.

“It’s cool to see the players grow,” Towle said. “That’s something I never thought I’d enjoy as much as I do, but watching middle school kids come from where they were and to see where they are now.”

The main objective of Towle’s new offensive line is to protect eighth grader Jens Biggerstaff, the Miners quarterback who has been a big difference maker on the team.

“He just knows the game inside and out,” Earl said. “He’s a phenomenal leader on the field.”

Biggerstaff started calling his own plays this year, reading the defense to help the linemen know where to block and identify open spaces to pass to. One of his favorite targets is wide receiver Wyatt Cohen, another eighth grader who’s been a playmaker for the Miners. The two players knew nothing but defeat since joining the team in sixth grade, so when they won their first game this season against Ennis, it was thrilling.

“Winning that game was like, the best feeling in the world,” Cohen said. “We only won 12-0 but it took a whole team to win that game.”

The whole season has been a collective effort. Several sixth graders have earned spots in the starting lineup, and the coaches say their players are working hard every day to get better. The coaches themselves, which include Walkup, Earl, Towle, and Wyatt’s dad Dave Cohen, are volunteering their time to help the team grow, and their efforts are bearing fruit.

“I love all of our coaches,” Biggerstaff said. “They push us to be good, and sometimes we get annoyed with them, but what they do just helps us win games and get better.”

Although the coaches worked hard to keep spirits high during the losing streak, everyone agrees that winning is a lot more fun.

“I always find football fun, but it wasn’t as fun,” Biggerstaff said. “Now that we’re winning, I want to put in a lot more effort to keep winning.”

“I just don’t have to live with the gut feeling almost knowing I’m going to lose every game by 50 points,” Cohen said. “This year, we’re always thinking yeah, we’re going to win this game.”

From a combination of luck, committed coaching, and more experienced players, the Miners have been winning. But after two years of defeat, the coaches, as well as many of the players, know that winning isn’t guaranteed, and they want to focus on what matters most.

“What Scott Larsen created last year was just a place where the boys can have fun, and that’s the main thing,” Earl said. “We like to win, we love to win, and we’re winning this year which is great, but just having the boys have fun and enjoy themselves is what’s important.”

Next year’s squad will be different from this one. Jens Biggerstaff, Wyatt Cohen and their eighth grade classmates will move onto high school ball, sixth and seventh graders will have growth spurts over the winter and come back bigger and stronger than before, and a new crop of sixth graders will join the ranks. Time will tell whether or not they can repeat this year’s success, but for now, the Miners are having a blast.

The Miners have two games remaining this season, Oct. 11 at Park City and Oct. 25 at Flint Creek.