Prep Football Preview: Mark Morris at Kelso for Week 1

Hilanders host Monarchs to get high school football season started

Sam Barbee for Blast Zone Media

If you’re planning on going to Schroeder Field to watch the Mark Morris and Kelso football teams in Week 1, be sure to bring your jacket. Maybe a pillow and a blanket, too, because the days of snappy two-hour contests between the two schools are now put to bed.

Led by new head coach Mike Peck and employing a newfound throw-it-all-over-the-field style, the Monarchs are set to venture across the river to play the Hilanders to open the season Friday night. And the hosts themselves have similarly found a penchant for spreading the ball around the field in recent years, a notable departure from Kelso's traditional style of grind-you-into-dust-and-make-snow-angels football.

And despite their proximity and (gasp!) similarities, the rival schools haven't been spending too much time thinking about one another in the preseason.

“We haven’t talked about Kelso much this week,” Peck said. “The focus is on us. We’re preparing to be the best version of ourselves. If we gotta motivate you to play Kelso, then we gotta check your pulse. We don’t even need to talk about them because it’s gonna be a great environment.”

Kelso coach Steve Amrine agreed with that assessment.

“I think with Mike (Peck) coming in there’s a huge buzz. It's great for Cowlitz County,” he said. “One of the reasons we took this job was you get a chance to play (Mark) Morris and (R.A.) Long to start the year in Cowlitz County, and that was kind of cool.”

Many fans might think of Kelso football and only remember the departed names, several of which can be found on D1 football rosters on college campuses near and far. But to be stuck in the past would be a mistake.

As Coach Amrine stood on the artificial turf of Schroeder Field one late August evening after another preseason practice, he listed familiar names that are still around. That includes his son and last year's quarterback, Tucker Amrine, who is medically cleared after a health scare late last season and is primed to start game one under center. 

There's plenty of returning talent in the peripheral, too. Namely, Bryce Collins is back. As is Aden Mintonye. Zaden Hoover is back, too, so there's plenty of production from last season still present in the Hilanders locker room. 

Taking a look at the line is where Kelso fans will begin to notice more new names, and perhaps the biggest question marks. That's to be expected following the departures of big pushers like Payton Stewart and Connor Wesemann. Still, Amrine said there is no dearth of size.

“We’re gonna go 6-4, 280 at right guard with Jason Sloan,” Coach Amrine said. “We’re gonna go 6-3, 255 in Dyllon Wallace at right tackle. We’re gonna play some young guys, but we have some guys who have played some football.”

Even with big bodies and athleticism as a hallmark of the program, Kelso always seems to find itself in a pinch come the postseason. How many times have the Hilanders had a really good regular season only to be rewarded with a trip to the Seattle metro area to play some juggernaut in the opening rounds? 

The simple answer is many times. Some would say, too many times.

So the goal, then, is to win the 3A Greater St. Helens League. Win the league and the Hilanders will get a significantly better seed to the playoffs. Even better would be to win the league convincingly (see: no first-place tiebreakers or coin flips) and leave no doubt for the group of big brains charged with deciding the bracket. 

But is this Kelso team positioned well enough to do so? 

Perhaps not, at least on paper. The 3A GSHL will be tough again this season and high school sports is still (mostly) about who’s in the hallways. By this time of year, rosters have got what they've got talent-wise. But there are things programs can do to generate more skill, and ways to make teams greater than the sum of its parts.

If there is one great strength for this Kelso team it’s their cohesion. It’s maybe the hardest thing to create and the biggest separator between the good, the bad, and the great. Its existence is how teams with less talent win, and its absence is how teams with superior talent don’t. 

“That started in July,” Coach Amrine said. “We went down and won the Union passing league... Last time we did that was 2022 when we won a conference. We went to Trench Camp and we took 15 guys this year in the middle of July in 100-degree weather at Willamette University on the turf there."

And that summertime work has paid off inside the locker room, on the sideline and in the thick of the huddle.

“Our guys are super excited," Coach Amrine noted. "They’re ready to prove that we can still play a little ball around here.”

Looking Across the River

There is one group who already knows that Kelso can still play some ball.

Headed by a former Lumberjack in his grand return to Cowlitz County football, Mike Peck will lead Mark Morris into this cross-Cowlitz River clash with a special project ready that's ready (or not) for its big debut. For the first time in (at least) three decades, the Monarchs are well-prepared to throw the ball. And they want to throw it a lot.

After graduating from R.A. Long, Peck has become somewhat of an air attack guru in the prep football world. Wanting to focus on coaching only (and not paperwork), Peck resigned as head coach of Prairie after the 2021 season and relocated to Burley, Idaho, where he was offensive coordinator at a loaded program that featured five-star receiver Gatlin Bair, who is now at the University of Oregon.

Peck always planned on coming back, but previously felt overly burdened by being a head coach. To be fair, nobody is ever truly prepared for all the extra stuff that’s required when you’re the head guy. And Peck just wanted to coach offense. So that’s what he did for a while.

And now he’s back. Back in his hometown, and back on the sideline in a headset.

“I’m a better coach and a better person for going over there,” Peck said. “It was always part of the plan to come back. I just wanted to get into a situation where when I was ready to be a head coach again I wanted to be a better one than I was before.”

Peck runs an offense that isn’t terribly far off from the Air Raid popularized by Mike Leech and put on display at Washington State during his time there. But the Monarchs plan on doing things a little bit differently. This year the Mark Morris offense will be operating with the throttle wide open. It will involve plenty of pre-snap movement, looking to find mismatches and helping the quarterback figure out what the defense is doing.

That is to say, it’s a quarterback-heavy system. They have to be confident in what they’re seeing. They have to be confident with the verbiage. After a quick transition period in spring ball, and some at-home work done watching film, Peck is confident in both of his varsity quarterbacks going forward.

While he wasn’t prepared to name a starter on the record between combatants Nate Stephens and Carter Huhta, but did say both quarterbacks will play at the hostile confines across the river in K-Town.

“We’re really excited because we have two people who can play QB and be successful for us on a Friday night right now,” Peck said.

One thing Peck’s offenses have historically been exceptionally good at is getting the ball to guys who are open and can do something with it. Like any sharp offensive mind, he can find ways — either simple or creative — at getting the ball to the playmakers, and this season he’s got a few to choose from.

There’s junior Dekker Bartell, who will play outside as a receiver on offense and outside linebacker on defense. There’s Kenny Mullens, who will get plenty of carries and catches out of the backfield and has a chance to be one of the better players in the 2A Greater St. Helens League if preseason flashes of brilliance are any indication. There’s Brady Schlecht outside, too, making his return to the gridiron and ready to haul in passes. All three figure to have big years in this new offense. (Reporter's Note: Remind the media to put a quarter in the jar every time we say “high octane.")

There’s some size up front for the Monarchs, too. Dalton Stevens is up there. Amon Flemings. Brady Lewis. There are bodies and they are strong.

For Peck and his Monarchs, this season will be about building a culture. It always is with coaching changes. While he's brought in new and young and energetic coaches, Peck also retained some from the previous staff to keep some familiarity both ways, while also bringing in his father, Larry, to help, which must be a thrill for both.

As you walk into Mark Morris’ practice field, there is a sign with words signaling the outlook and the culture Peck wants to build. None of those words are about football, specifically. All are about life, in general.

“If you apply those (values) to football, it has to be successful,” Peck said. “I think the excitement of a new system, plus the vision of a culture and how we’re trying to create great humans with that and the plan to get us to be competitive for league titles every year. I think the culmination of that is something the kids have seen and really bought into.”

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this content and want to see more of it, be on the lookout for more coverage from the folks at Blast Zone Media in the near future. With the likes of Sam Barbee, Ben Zimmerman and Jordan Nailon onboard, just to name a few, Blast Zone Media will be on site and online all season to provide coverage for prep teams from the Lower Columbia region. More details coming soon!

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this content and want to see more of it, be on the lookout for more coverage from the folks at Blast Zone Media in the near future. With the likes of Sam Barbee, Ben Zimmerman and Jordan Nailon onboard, just to name a few, Blast Zone Media will be on site and online all season to provide coverage for prep teams from the Lower Columbia region. More details coming soon!For Peck and his Monarchs, this season will be about building a culture. It always is with coaching changes. While he's brought in new and young and energetic coaches, Peck also retained some from the previous staff to keep some familiarity both ways, while also bringing in his father, Larry, to help, which must be a thrill 

As you walk into Mark Morris’ practice field, there is a sign with words signaling the outlook and the culture Peck wants to build. None of those words are about football, specifically. All are about life,