Written by: Brandon Baney
The 2023 season was a heavy one for the St. Maries Lumberjacks.
Longtime coach Craig Tefft, who led the Lumberjacks to their only football championship in school history, was tragically passed away in September at the age of 47 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Tefft was hopeful that the cancer had completely gone into remission, and intended to lead St. Maries on the sidelines once again. But his health took a turn for the worst, and former assistant coach Greg Rouse took the reins of the program instead.
The emotional toll was apparent, and yet, the Lumberjacks were only a game or two away from qualifying for the postseason. St. Maries finished in second place in the Central Idaho League with a 2-1 record (falling only to CIL champ Grangeville), but a 3-5 overall record wasn’t strong enough to garner an at-large bid via the MaxPreps rating system.
Now with a complete and full offseason under coach Rouse, optimism is high that St. Maries can restore the glory to their program in 2024.
“We are returning a handful of offensive players who saw their first varsity start last year, and so we come into this season with great experience,” says Rouse.
Now, naysayers will point out that the focal point of the Lumberjacks’ offene, 1,000-yard rusher Trey Gibson graduated. However, his production could be split evenly between a few candidates (senior Gerald Dittman, junior Aiden Yearout and sophomore Loki Rice), and coach Rouse is expecting the ground game to be a strength yet again.
“We’ve always had a great run game,” says Rouse. “Our line is young but huge, and even though we lost the top rusher in the state, there are a bunch of guys who are chomping at the bit for their chance.”
The offensive line will be led by seniors Jason Thompson and John Keneally. Juniors Russ Brusseau and Kyle Smith are also returning starters up front.
Junior Jack Barta returns to the quarterback position for St. Maries, and he welcomes back two of his top three receivers from a year ago in seniors Julien Ceja-Grimaldo and Hayden Defoort.
“This offseason we put a lot of work into our passing game, so we should see some great results going forward,” says Rouse. “This offseason, we competed and had great success in various 7-on-7 competitions, so the passing game is looking up.”
The strength of St. Maries’ defense lies in its secondary. Dittman and Ceja-Grimaldo each earned All-League honors there a season ago. Otherwise, St. Maries fans may have to keep a roster of names handy when watching the defense this year.
“Our defense is fast, young, and aggressive,” says Rouse. “You’re going to see a bunch of new faces but they are a very talented group of young players. Our goal is to get back to being a dominant defense.”
League coaches have singled out Grangeville again as the favorite in the CIL heading into 2024. But all of the other teams (St. Maries, Kellogg, Orofino and Priest River) are young and hungry. Whichever team can gel the quickest could be in position to challenge the Bulldogs for CIL supremacy.
“With everything that went on last year, the goal was to just lay a foundation for the future,” says Rouse. “We made a bunch of program changes, hired a bunch of new coaches, implemented a new offensive system and established the first part of it last year (the run game). We’ve done more in this offseason than we’ve ever done in the past and that work will show up on the field.”