Last season, the football team at Meridian High School struggled mightily due to exponential roster turnover and a lack of experience at most key positions. That being said, freshman starting QB Cruz Ruoff and the Mustangs showed plenty of growth throughout the year, and look to be even more improved in 2023.

Every key starter with the exception of Josh Wattles and Kyle Jinks will return from last season’s team, including Ruoff, RBs Omar Dabbourah and Alden Harrison, and receiving threats Luke Russell and James Teague. Martin Kraft, Duke Dawson, and Matthew Downs are among the other notable names returning to the offense.

Many of those same names will also be featured at various defensive positions, though head coach P.J. Anderson says that he’d like to have less two-way action this season, keeping his players fresher on both sides of the ball. Domanic Zacharias-Martin is one name who has stood out to the coach throughout practice sessions as a standout contributor.

“I’m very excited for what’s to come, not just this year but the next several,” said Anderson via phone interview. “I think we should be vastly improved on both sides of the ball… we had a very young team (last year) that had zero varsity experience, and now we have varsity experience.”

The Mustangs open their season on Friday, August 25th, at home against McLean. Meanwhile, other fall sports at Meridian include field hockey, volleyball, cross country, and golf. Look out for both the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams to make some noise this year – the boys return nine of their top ten performers from last year’s 9th place team in the State Meet, while the girls return eight of their top ten from a team that placed 4th. Tucker Albaugh (24th individually in States last season) and Molly Moore (15th) are set to respectively headline those teams.

Best of luck to all Mustang teams this fall!