Friday night was the 27th season football opener for Jackson County Central and the 23rd win. That’s an .852 percentage.
It was the third time the Huskies have opened the season vs. Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial and all three of those games have been JCC wins.
Blue Earth Area is the school Jackson County Central has opened with. The Huskies have placed the Buccaneers in their opener 11 times and have won 10 of those meetings.
Season openers
1997: Jackson County Central 28, Blue Earth Area 21
1998: Jackson County Central 22, Blue Earth Area 6
1999: Jackson County Central 48, Blue Earth Area 25
2000: Jackson County Central 21, Blue Earth Area 17
2001: Jackson County Central 40, Blue Earth Area 14
2002: Jackson County Central 25, Blue Earth Area 6
2003: Jackson County Central 20, Blue Earth Area 6
2004: Jackson County Central 24, Blue Earth Area 8
2005: Windom 55, Jackson County Central 14
2006: Jackson County Central 28, Windom 14
2007: Jackson County Central 27, Blue Earth Area 18
2008: Jackson County Central 10, Blue Earth Area 7
2009: Jackson County Central 35, New Ulm 8
2010: Jackson County Central 26, New Ulm 12
2011: Jackson County Central 20, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 0
2012: Jackson County Central 59, Virginia 6
2013: Jackson County Central 21, St. Louis Park 7
2014: Jackson County Central 43, Fairmont 20
2015: Maple River 17, Jackson County Central 15
2016: Jackson County Central 18, Maple River 13
2017: Jackson County Central 34, Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 8
2018: Jackson County Central 56, Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 7
2019: Jackson County Central 46, New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva 0
2020: Blue Earth Area 45, Jackson County Central 14
2021: Maple River 35, Jackson County Central 8
2022: Jackson County Central 30, Maple River 27
By school
Here is the season opener record vs. each school. Listed according to won-loss percentage.
Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 3-0
New Ulm 2-0
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 1-0
Fairmont 1-0
New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva 1-0
St. Louis Park 1-0
Virginia 1-0
Blue Earth Area 10-1
Maple River 2-2
Windom 1-1
South Central Silver District
Jackson County Central plays in the South Central Silver District. Here are this week’s results and next week’s schedule for those teams.
Thursday, Aug. 31
Luverne: Defeated Worthington 25-20
Minnesota Valley Lutheran: Defeated Sibley East 34-6
Friday, Sept. 1
Jackson County Central: Defeated Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 42-13
Pipestone: Defeated Blue Earth Area 21-18
Redwood Valley: Defeated LeSueur-Henderson 35-26
Friday, Sept. 8
Jackson County Central: at Worthington
Luverne: at Jordan
Minnesota Valley Lutheran: at Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial
Pipestone: at LeSueur-Henderson
Redwood Valley: at Maple River
Section 3AA
Jackson County Central will play in Section 3A in postseason play. Here are this week’s results and next week’s schedule for those teams.
Thursday, Aug. 31
Sibley East: Lost to Minnesota Valley Lutheran 34-6
Friday, Sept. 1
Jackson County Central: Defeated Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 42-13
Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial: Lost to Jackson County Central 42-13
LeSueur-Henderson: Lost to Redwood Valley 35-26
Pipestone: Defeated Blue Earth Area 21-18
Redwood Valley: Defeated LeSueur-Henderson 35-26
Windom: Lost to BOLD 71-34
Section 3AA
Friday, Sept. 8
Jackson County Central: at Worthington:
Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial: vs. Minnesota Valley Lutheran
LeSueur-Henderson: vs. Pipestone
Minnesota Valley Lutheran: at Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial
Pipestone: at LeSueur-Henderson
Redwood Valley: at Maple River
Sibley East: vs. Tri-City United
Windom: vs. St. James Area
Double duty
Jack Sadusky is pulling double duty this fall sports season. The Jackson County Central senior is kicking for the Huskies football team and he’s also playing with the Fairmont boys soccer team again.
He started the week by scoring the lone goal for the Cardinals in a loss to New Ulm Monday and finished it by kicking three extra points and handling the kickoff duties for the JCC football team on Friday.
This week, Fairmont has home soccer games vs. Waseca Tuesday and Marshall Thursday and the JCC football team is at Worthington Friday.
Moore teaching in Oklahoma
JCC graduate Keegan Moore has started a job as a teacher in Prague, Okla.
Keegan is teaching sixth grade Language Arts and an Art class.
He will also have some coaching duties with a couple of Red Devils teams as he is assistant coach for Middle School football and wrestling. He’s also on the coaching staff of the high school football and wrestling teams as well.
Moore earned a master’s degree in human relations at Oklahoma University, where he concluded his college wrestling career with the Sooners last year. He was a two-time NCAA tournament qualifier, once with Oklahoma and once with Oklahoma State. He also wrestled at Northern Iowa.
Moore holds JCC football school records for career rushing, single-season touchdowns and career TDs. He also has three of the top seven single-season rushing marks and is fifth in single-season touchdowns in addition to having the top spot in that category.
Keegan was a three-time state champion at JCC and his name appears in the school wrestling records a number of times as well.
Off to Arizona
ICYMI, Nico Feroni, who graduated from Jackson County Central and Dakota State, where he played football for the Trojans, is teaching in Arizona this year.
Nico is strength and conditioning coach and a physical educator at Higley High School in Gilbert, Ariz.
He had been teaching middle school PE in New Prague, where he was also the head strength coach. Feroni was also head strength coach for the Madison, S.D. school district in his last two years at Dakota State.
Playing time
The son of a former JCC football standout and the grandson of a longtime Huskies coach saw some playing time for Class 5A power Mankato West in its season opener on Thursday.
Hudson Clarksean is the son of Dallas and Niki Clarksean and grandson of Charlie and Linda Clarksean.
He’s a 6-foot, 180-pound freshman linebacker who played some in the Scarlets’ 42-0 win over Northfield. West won the state 5A title in 2021 and lost the championship game to Elk River last year.
Still on top
It’s been a half-century since he played for the Jackrabbits, but Charlie Clarksean still holds a couple of South Dakota State records.
Charlie holds the school single-season interception record with nine in 1972, including three in one game vs. Eastern Montana.
Also, he is the career interception leader at SDSU with 14. He returned one interception for a touchdown.
Charlie was a three-time letterman (1971-73) and an all-North Central Conference performer in 1973.
In 2011, Charlie was named to the 50-player Coughlin-Alumni Stadium All-Time Team in the 50th year the Jackrabbits played in that facility, which closed in 2015.
One of the other defensive backs on that team was Wayne Rasmussen, who played 10 seasons in the NFL with the Detroit Lions.
The kicker and punter on that team was Adam Vinatieri, who played 24 seasons in the NFL with the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts and won four Super Bowls. His 48-yard field goal on the final play of Super Bowl XXXVI gave the Patriots a 20–17 upset win over the St. Louis Rams, who were 14-point favorites.
Dallas Clarksean also played football at SDSU.
RTR drops opener
Darren Baartman, who was the head for the final year of Jackson High School in 1996 and JCC’s first head coach in 1997 and 1998, is the head coach at Russell-Tyler-Ruthton.
The Knights lost their season opener at home to traditional power Minneota last week. RTR is at Wabasso this Friday.
JCC played in Prep Bowl (the state championship game) each season Baartman was head coach of the Huskies.
Yes, Nolan is Wearing Shorts
Friday marked the premiere edition of “Yes, Nolan is Wearing Shorts”:
“Yes, Nolan is Wearing Shorts” was last year’s unexpected runaway hit sensation.
If you’re not already, follow me on Twitter @sportsdr44 to catch each episode on JCC football game nights.
There’s a lot of pressure on the writing staff to keep the feature going.