VIDEO: Hear from the 2024 Pinckney Pirates football team
Hear Pinckney football coach Jason Carpenter and the players talk about the upcoming season.
PINCKNEY – First impressions from a visit to a recent football practice in Pinckney: What’s up with the hair?
Some Pinckney players have been sporting bleached hair since early June, when they helped the Pirates win their first district baseball championship since 2000.
In the two months since the end of the baseball season, the players have not had enough time to revive their natural hair color and suppress the memory of their shared visit to the hairdresser.
“We’ve talked about bringing it into districts,” senior Nolan Carruthers said. “If we win districts, we want to do it for regionals. And that’s what we did. We all look alike, too. Hopefully by the next cut, it’ll be gone. I want it to be gone by next year.”
Carruthers, Evan McGlothin, Hayden Beaver and Jax Raymond are members of the baseball team who will also play football this fall.
“We did it as a team, a little tradition that we want to start,” Raymond said.
Pinckney’s championship and 22-14-1 record on the field allowed the players, who were coming off an 0-9 football season, to finish the 2023-24 school year on a high note.
For those who return, the hope is that the experience of winning a championship in one sport will translate to success in another. Pinckney also has members of a track and field team that placed second at regionals.
“It definitely puts us in a better mood,” Raymond said. “We had a good baseball season. A lot of my buddies were on the football team there, so we have a good connection, the chemistry is good. Hopefully that carries over into the football season.”
Here are some important things to know about the 2024 Pirates:
No shortage of playing time
One of the most common complaints coaches receive from parents is that their child did not get enough playing time.
This won’t be a problem with Pinckney.
On game nights, everyone will come onto the field, including players who participated in the Junior Varsity game the day before.
Pinckney has 41 players split between the junior and varsity teams. The breakdown is as follows: 13 freshmen, 10 sophomores, 8 third-years, and 10 fourth-years.
It will be like putting together a puzzle for Coach Jason Carpenter and his staff to get the JV players their allotted quarter of varsity games while also spreading them out throughout the game.
“We’re going to take advantage of the fifth quarter rule,” Carpenter said. “We have to. Some of our younger players are going to be in there for at least a quarter and help us on special teams. If they can fill in for a player on offense or defense for a quarter, that’s great, but I feel pretty comfortable rotating about 20 players on Friday and about 20 players on Thursday. Some of our players are going to play mostly offense, mostly defense and rotate on the other side of the ball.”
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The improved numbers in offseason workouts have given Carpenter even more encouragement that the Pirates can do better than they did last year when they were in the same position.
“Our guys are in shape,” he said. “We had a great summer combined with basketball. Basketball was part of training all summer. We trained 60 guys all summer, which was great.”
Just win, baby
Carruthers begins his season with more catches than any other player in Livingston County history.
He has 123 catches in two seasons. His 1,409 career receiving yards rank fourth in county history, just 226 shy of the mark set by Pinckney’s Caleb Wardlow from 2019-2021.
Tracking Carruthers’ numbers will be an interesting subplot to Pinckney’s season, but those aren’t the numbers that drive him.
“We have to win as a team and make the playoffs,” he said. “I don’t have any individual goals.”
In a game last season, Carruthers set a county record by catching 16 balls. In that game, he caught all but one of Pinckney’s balls.
The Pirates hope to distribute the ball better this season. Hayden Beaver is a solid option, as he caught 26 passes for 252 yards last season.
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Experience as quarterback
Raymond was thrown in at the deep end as a rookie last season and became Pinckney’s starting quarterback in Week 4.
There were the predictable initial difficulties, but also signs of potential. Raymond completed 106 of 193 passes for 1,035 yards, seven touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Raymond is ready to put this experience to good use as a sophomore.
“I’m definitely feeling more comfortable and confident,” he said. “Last year I didn’t really expect to be racing at the beginning of the season. I was just thrown into it. I didn’t really expect it, but now I’ve had the whole offseason to prepare, so I’m going into the season pretty confident.”
PINCNKEY SCHEDULE 2024
August 29 – Lake Fenton
6 September – A Coruña
13 September – in Chelsea
20 September – Jackson
September 27 – Tecumseh
October 4 – in Ypsilanti
October 11 – Adrian
October 18 – in Carrollton
October 25 – Ann Arbor Pioneer
* All games start at 7pm
Contact Bill Khan at [email protected]. Follow him on X @BillKhan
