’22 Season Preview: Daniel Boone Blazers
PIAA classification: 4A
League: Lancaster-Lebanon Section 3
Schedule: Click here
Last season: 2-1 Berks 1, 5-4 overall
Last District 3 playoff appearance: 2021
Head coach: Rob Flowers, fifth season, 15-23
Key losses: All-League second-team RB AJ Hofer, RB & CB JT Hogan, Berks 1 co-Receiver of the Year Alex Vassallo, all-league DT and second-team T Colin Leahy, all-league PK & P Nate Millard.
Top offensive players: QB Dean Rotter, RB Ethan Kryman, RB Conner Reed, WR Robbie Burns, WR Anthony High, second-team all-league TE Draven Klick, C Reily Mentzell, second-team all-league G Tony Rulli, G George Quinter, T Jordan Meyer, T Jesse Smith.
| LL3 | Projected finish |
| 1 | Ephrata |
| 2 | Daniel Boone |
| 3 | Twin Valley |
| 4 | Elizabethtown |
| 5 | Garden Spot |
| 6 | Fleetwood |
| 7 | Solanco |
Top defensive players: E Jordan Meyer, E Draven Klick, T Jesse Smith, T Jorge Pingarron, second-team all-league LB Ryan Souder, LB Ethan Kryman, LB Anthony High, S Conner Reed, S Ryan Poore, CB Robbie Burns, CB Max Heffner.
Did you know? Daniel Boone played Exeter 61 straight seasons, the longest continuous rivalry in Berks football history, until being forced to cancel last year’s game due to COVID issues.
For the record: Blazers QB Jon Monteiro set a Berks record by completing 29 passes (in 39 attempts) in a 36-26 win over Pottsville in 2008; he threw for 400 yards. (The completions record was broken last season when Conrad Weiser’s Logan Klitsch completed 36 passes in a playoff game vs. Big Spring.
Quotable: “Our bigs are the strength of our team. We return four offensive linemen, plus our tight end; three of them have been playing since they were freshmen. That’s a big deal for us. There haven’t been many times for us when we have returned four or five linemen. We want to control the line of scrimmage; that’s going to be very important for us.” — Blazers coach Rob Flowers.
On schedule: Daniel Boone and Exeter, who traditionally played for the Pig Iron Trophy in the final week of the regular season, will meet in a season opener Aug. 26. With the Blazers in Section 3 and the Eagles in Section 2, they can’t meet in Week 10 under the current Lancaster-Lebanon League format.
Outlook: The Blazers’ 2021 season was nearly sunk before it got off the dock as Carter Speyerer, expected to be one of the top QBs in the league, was lost for the season on the second series of the opening game.
Sophomore Dean Rotter, a converted WR, quickly grasped the offense and helped the Blazers win five of their final six games following an 0-2 start to qualify for the District 3 Tournament for the first time since 2014.
Rotter ended up throwing for nearly 1,000 yards, had a 12-to-3 TDs-to-INTs ratio and completed nearly 60 percent of his passes.
The majority of his completions went to Alex Vassallo, the league’s co-receiver of the year. He won’t be able to rely on such a steady target this season but he will have a big one in Draven Klick, a TE who goes 6-5 and has Division I potential.
Klick, one of seven return starters on offense, will be part of a massive offensive line that averages 6-2, 240, and will be the key to Boone’s success. G’s Tony Rulli and George Quinter go 270 and 278, respectively; they return to the front wall along with 6-4, 250-pound T Jordan Meyer and 6-3, 212-pound T Jessie Smith.
That group figures to give Rotter plenty of time to throw and Ethan Kryman, a potentially explosive RB, room to run. Kryman, a junior, brings a lot of energy to the table and drives his teammates with a work ethic head coach Rob Flowers says is unrivaled.
The defense was hit harder by graduation, with seven starters lost. The front line, solid against the run last season, will use some of those same big bodies to stuff the run again. The defensive backfield and most of the linebacking corp needs to be replaced.
The biggest addition of the offseason was Defensive Coordinator Ron Zeiber, the former Exeter, Boyertown and Hempfield head coach. He’ll switch from the 4-4 to a 3-4 look and figures to make an impact on the entire squad.
“He provides us with a lot of ‘veteran-ism’ ” said Flowers.
The toughest guy to replace from last season might be All-State kicker Nate Millard, perhaps the Blazers’ best defensive weapon a year ago with his punting and kickoffs. (He’s now battling for a spot at Kutztown University.)
At the wire: Battling Ephrata and Twin Valley for the Section 2 championship and returning to the District 3 playoffs.
Lancaster-Lebanon League 2022
| Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | Section 5 |
| Cedar Crest | Conestoga Valley | Daniel Boone | Berks Catholic | Annville-Cleona |
| Hempfield | Exeter | Elizabethtown | Cocalico | Columbia |
| Manheim Twp. | Gov. Mifflin | Ephrata | Conrad Weiser | Hamburg |
| McCaskey | Lebanon | Fleetwood | Donegal | Kutztown |
| Penn Manor | Manheim Central | Garden Spot | Elco | Lancaster Catholic |
| Reading High | Muhlenberg | Solanco | Lampeter-Strasburg | Northern Lebanon |
| Wilson | Warwick | Twin Valley | Octorara | Pequea Valley |
| | | | Wyomissing | Schuylkill Valley |
