Two-a-days: New faces stepping up at Mason, East Lansing after state semifinal runs

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Only two high school football programs in the WLNS-TV viewing area have reached the state semifinals in the last four seasons.

One is Jackson Lumen Christi and the other is Mason.

The Bulldogs are stop No. 3 on the 6 Sports ‘Two-a-days’ tour around mid-Michigan and will have a new quarterback this fall.

Junior Gerrit Koot takes over for Cason Carswell, who is the program’s all-time leading passer and is now playing at Western Illinois.

While he has big shoes to fill, Koot will be ready to go come Week 1 against Holt.

“He knew his assignment, as soon as the season ended,” Mason coach Gary Houghton said. ‘He knew he was going to be the guy, and we’ve been working with him since the season ended last year and he’s done a remarkable job. He’s made some great strides, very smart, big athletic kid.”

“He’s smart and he’s composed,” Mason senior wide receiver/running back Hayden Hendrickson said of Koot. “Him being a new starter on the varsity level, he keeps himself composed, and he does everything the right way.”

Houghton is entering his ninth season as Mason’s head coach and has a young and experienced group.

“We had four freshmen, four sophomores up last year, they did a great job in the offseason. So I’m really excited about this group.”

Hendrickson will be one of Mason’s top playmakers and will be joined by Luke Goss, Frankie Trigo and Troy Peters as returning skill players, who will help out Koot in his first year as a varsity starting quarterback.

While the program has seen a lot of success over the past four seasons, the mentality starts at ground zero.

“I’ve reminded them, they’re 0-0,” Houghton said. “They haven’t won a game themselves yet, but the expectations are high, the bar is high and they know they have to work to reach that.”

The Bulldogs will start the season at home against Holt and then travel to DeWitt for a Week 2 matchup against the Panthers.

In East Lansing, the Trojans are coming off their second straight trip to the Div. 2 State Semifinals.

They graduated a class of 24 seniors and will be relying on a lot of new faces in 2025.

Players lost to graduation include standout running backs Jace Clarizio and Dwataye Sams Jr., quarterback Ben Fletcher and wide receivers B.J. Windham, Darryle Geter and JL Branson. Clarizio is now a freshman on MSU’s football team and Sams Jr., Windham and Geter are all continuing their football careers at Davenport.

“It’s a little bit of a jolt to lose the type of student-athletes that we had last year but things move forward and you have to prepare accordingly,” said head coach Bill Feraco. “We have quality in some of the people that are coming up. It’s just that we would like for them, maybe for lack of a better analogy, to start to connect the dots a little bit quicker. That’ll happen. That’ll happen and it’s part of the responsibility of teaching and coaching.”

Feraco said he’s excited about the potential of this group.

Junior B.J. Ardister will be taking over at quarterback and among the new faces at wide receiver are Tyree and Wade Anthony, the younger brothers of former Trojan standout and current Duke Blue Devils wide receiver Andrel Anthony.

In addition to the new faces, the Trojans have some key players returning, and they feel confident their offensive and defensive lines will be a strength.

“I think our line is good so if we can continue to tail off them, keep pounding the ball on some of our opponents and then eventually hit some big shots in the pass game, I think we’ll be fine,” said senior wide receiver and cornerback Kellen Lott.

As usual, the Trojans have also compiled a challenging schedule in 2025. The CAAC Blue is consistently one of the top conferences in the area and East Lansing’s three non-conference opponents all won at least seven games in 2024.

Those non-conference opponents are Portage Central (week one), Hudsonville (week two) and Davison (week six). Hudsonville was a Div. 1 State Finalist in 2024.

“Welcome the challenge of competition, quality competition,” said Feraco. “Welcome the challenge. Be ready to confront it and prepare. Prepare, value quality preparation so we can put forth our best effort on a Thursday with Portage Central for instance, and then throughout the season.”

“We’ve really just got to focus up the practice, two-a-days all before that to really lock it in the first couple of weeks because it’ll be tough if we’re not all connected on the same page,” added Lott.

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