The Anselmo-Merna Athletic Booster Club gave the public the opportunity to meet and be introduced to this year’s Anselmo-Merna football and volleyball teams as well as the cheer and dance squad on Wednesday, August 13th during their fall sports kickoff event.
The Anselmo-Merna volleyball team will be looking to improve on a 14-15 overall record from a year ago. The Lady Coyotes return a handful of players with varsity experience including their top three attackers. Makenna Miller is in her senior season and led the team in kills last year with 252. Juniors Rhianen Myers and Shayleigh Coleman each had over 100 kills a season ago. Head coach Katie Hoblyn is in her 12th season and said during the event that she has been very impressed with the work ethic of this year’s team. Anselmo-Merna begins the season August 29th when they play at Sandhills/Thedford.
The Anselmo-Merna football team advanced to the second round of the Class D2 playoffs last season and will look to build on that success this year. The Coyotes have just 14 players on the squad this year. Head coach Troy Gilligan talked about the challenges that presents in practice but also about the positive of all players getting numerous reps in practice.
“(Assistant) coach (Spencer) Goodman and I kind of talked – How do you do first team and second team? You need 16 guys. (But) the main thing or the pro to this is there’s 14 guys and you get a lot of reps. Each kid gets plenty and plenty of reps during the day. You get to see more and more opportunities for these kids, more opportunities to get better. But there’s always the down side. You want more kids especially for the JV aspect. You want to play those games just so these younger guys have an opportunity to get on the field.”
The Coyotes will open the football season August 29th on the road against Sandhills/Thedford in Dunning.
The AM athletic booster club also announced that Anselmo-Merna graduate Matt McGinn will be the newest member of the Anselmo-Merna athletic hall of fame. McGinn was a first team Class D1 all state football selection in 1996 and was recently inducted into the 2024 NEMFCA Eight-Man Football Hall of Fame class this past summer. McGinn will be inducted on September 20th in a ceremony during the Anselmo-Merna vs Central Valley football game.
