Crimson Bears are back on the gridiron
- Klas Stolpe
- Aug 7
- 9 min read
JDHS returns football team to black and red
The 2025-26 Alaska high school football season has begun and the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears have returned as the namesake of the capital city’s gridiron team.
“We're back to being the Bears,” JDHS head coach Rich Sjoroos said. “A few of the kids are still feeling it out. We’re starting to say Bears on the breaks and chants and things. They've been saying Huskies since they were freshmen or whatever. But I think each day that goes by, everybody's really embracing it more and more. And that's their school now. So I think everybody's behind that.”
JDHS had become the Juneau Huskies when Thunder Mountain High School and the then JDHS team could not field large enough programs. The two schools combined their programs in a similar way the wrestling programs had when numbers dwindled. The Juneau School District waited one year for the name change, allowing the community time to adjust to last year’s consolidation between now-defunct Thunder Mountain High School and JDHS.
The Crimson Bears will showcase this year’s talent at the White/Silver Scrimmage on Aug. 11 (6 p.m.) at Thunder Mountain Middle School and unveil their new uniforms at Player Intro Night on Aug.14 (8-9 p.m.) at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Field.
“We were 3-6 last year,” Sjoroos said. “We were 3-5 in the regular season and then lost to West in that playoff game in the last minute. That was a tough one. The kids played just phenomenal all night, defensively especially. And West just got us in that last minute on that fourth-down play. And then they ended up making it all the way to the finals. I just think that's how close that conference was last year. And I feel it's going to be every bit as competitive again this year.”
With the graduation of Hayden Aube, Jayden Johnson, Sage Schultz, Caleb Ziegenfuss, Johnathyn Kestel, Merrick Hartman, Benny Zukas, Gunnar Tarver and Stefano Rivera the Crimson Bears may seem to be on a rebuilding year. But the team has a solid foundation that hit the weight room just weeks after last season and continued through the summer with up to 30 players attending camps at Pacific Lutheran University and Linfield University.
“The kids did lots of off-season training,” Sjoroos said. “And then most of them were able to attend a couple of camps in the summer, and that sure goes a long way towards getting reps and practicing against different levels of competition from different states and different coaches, too. Sometimes it’s nice to hear a different voice than the same one you hear all the time. There was like 20 different high schools there, and so lots of different competitions, and scrimmages and individual skill sessions, and things like that. Really good camps.”
Key to the JDHS squad will once again rest on their offensive and defensive front lines as they battle through the Division I Cook Inlet Conference schedule for placing in the state championships.
Seniors Jonah Mahle, Kyle Carter, Hyrum Fish and Ricky Tupou are four key returning two-way lineman.
“We’ve got what I feel is one of the best offensive lines in the entire state,” Sjoroos said. “The fact is they've been together since their sophomore year, mostly at the varsity level, and they kind of took their lumps as sophomores, hung in there a lot of games last year, and then now it's kind of their turn this year. They've been putting a lot time and work in. They have that chemistry so we are much further along in the first week of practice. And hopefully we can kind of control the lines and dictate the tempos of the games that we play. And that's really going to be something that we kind of hang our hat on this year.”
Sjoroos also noted talent coming from senior running back/linebackers Gunnar Niere and Mati Iona, senior lineman Alex Marx-Beierly, and senior wide receiver/defensive backs Noah Ault and Daniel Campbell as key for success on the field.
“Aside from our line, Ethan Van Kirk is going to be the dynamite running back for us,” he said. “We did lose Sam Sarof, he would have been a senior running back, but he moved up to Anchorage, unfortunate for us, but I'm sure whatever school he ends up at is going be happy to see him walk in the door. But Ethan Van Kirk is just a dynamite running back. He actually got an award at the Linfield camp as one of the top running backs at that camp, so that was pretty neat to see, and then he'll be a safety force as well. And Noah Ault is back, and he spent a lot of time at quarterback and some different things, but he's going to be a receiver this year and a starting safety or DB in the secondary. He’s going to be our over-the-top threat, probably the fastest kid on the team, and probably one of the faster kids in our conference. We got a couple different kids vying for that quarterback spot. We got Daniel Campbell, who led the conference in interceptions as a DB last year, who's been really putting a lot of work in. And he's going to be in the running along with junior Krew Ridle who was the JV quarterback last year. So those two guys have been really going back and forth, and I kind of change my mind from day to day as to who I think has the lead in that scenario. I think there's going be ample opportunities for both of them to get game action this year and show what they can do.”
Sjoroos said the camp settings also allowed the players to bond outside of the field.
“There's no scoreboards so everybody can kind of exhale a little bit, let their guard down and get to know each other and just kind of have a little of a lighter approach to some of the stuff,” he said. “Football season gets to be a grind when they're practicing in the rain and everything's so tense because we're getting ready to play East or West or Bartlett, and they are big conference games. So once in a while it is nice to have other things filtered in, whether it be a team camp down south or like last week we went out the road and spent 24 hours at the Methodist camp doing some fun events, just kind of getting to know each other better. Same with the coaches, too, right? You coach a lot better if you know the person that you're working with next to you, so. It's all good stuff.”
At last week’s Unity Camp retreat, Sjoroos selected the team’s first captain.
“I asked the group, ‘If you had a captain on this team, what were some attributes and qualities you'd be looking for?’ And everybody had some great answers for that, you know, as far as being a leader, having commitment and dedication, all the things you look for in captain. And I said, ‘Well, I think we'd all agree we have one player here for sure, maybe some more, but definitely one right now that checks all those boxes.’ And when I said Ethan Van Kirk there was a big round of applause, they all knew. He's a great kid. He's only gonna be a junior, so we're gonna have him for a couple of years.”
Sjoroos has his entire coaching staff returning, including line coach and main assistant Jeff Hedges, and co-defensive coordinators Brandon Ridle and Todd Hanson.
“I felt like last year at the end of the year, our defense was playing at a really high level,” Sjoroos said. “And it was because those two guys had really got their system figured out and were getting the most out of the kids. So I'm excited that they're both coming back.”
Chris Connally works with the receivers and quarterbacks, Mike Behrends works with the running backs, and Zach Starboard is an assistant varsity coach.
New to the coaching staff is Naash Ritchie. His father, Riley Ritchie, started Sjoroos on his coaching journey when Naash played as a junior and senior. N. Ritchie will be the junior varsity head coach and also has a freshman son playing this season. Silver Maake is JV defensive coordinator and Kirby Carter is a JV assistant coach.
“I think our JV team is going to be really good,” Sjoroos said. “There's some really good players coming up this year in good numbers. I mean lots of freshmen and sophomores, and the future definitely looks bright.”
Team managers are Zoe Mahle, Aria Maake and Josiah Crowley.
Sjoroos relishes what he learns each season about his teams.
“I think last year I learned that there's just a toughness in these kids,” he said. “We’re so undersized with the growth of the Polynesian teams up in Anchorage. It used to be just a couple teams had a lot of bigger Polynesian kids or bigger kids in general, but now it seems like everybody up there has just got a lot of big, strong kids. So I feel like we have a toughness and there's just no limit to what these kids can do as far as taking on some of these bigger schools."
"They played so hard last year against West and Bartlett and East and came out short in some of those games, but seeing a bunch of those kids coming back this year, I feel our run game is going to be really good and our run defense is going to be really great. I think in the state of Alaska, if you do those two things well and play good special teams, you're going to be competitive in every single game you play no matter the size of the team."
"I just like this group. It was interesting. I was watching them after we lost to West in the playoffs. We stayed the night up there and before the game we were all business, right? But after the game they wanted to just play a little game of pickup basketball at the school we were staying. So I’m just watching them and just watching the fun they were having, but then also noticing we had some good athletes, some promising talent, coming back the following year. And it just gets your juices flowing."
"I like that this year when we went to camp we kind of went down there with a plan of ‘this person would be good in this role and this person good in this role,’ and we were able to see that through and it was very successful. I feel like we came out of camp with a pretty good plan that we're able to stick to and not have to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes you're going down there kind of trying to figure it out while you're there. And this time we had a great turn out during the spring and so we were able to kind of put the pieces in place a little bit earlier and stick with that. It's definitely getting us a head start on the season."
"We could use a few more guys. Especially with the older kids, we could use three or four more kids up at the varsity level just to give us some more depth and things like that. But we'll work with what we got.”
JDHS opens the season at Service on Aug. 15; hosts East Anchorage on Aug. 23; travels to Palmer on Aug. 30 and Bartlett on Sept. 6; hosts South Anchorage on Sept. 12, Dimond on Sept. 20 and Colony on Sept. 27; and finishes the regular season at West Anchorage on Oct. 4.
The four conference quarterfinal playoff games begin at each home field of the higher seed Oct. 10-11. The two semi-finals are at the higher seed’s home field on Oct. 17-18. The state championship game is Oct. 24 at Colony High School.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at kstolpe@juneauindependent.com.
The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears football team practice Tuesday at the Thunder Mountain Middle School field. The Crimson Bears open their season Aug. 15 in Anchorage against the Service Cougars. (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Independent)
