08/21/2025
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARBONDALE - It is always good to have goals when it comes to historic programs and the Alton Marquette Explorers have something special just in front of them to try in reach for this fall.

The football program is sitting on 495-victories in its 99-years of existence.

The Explorers reached the playoffs last fall for its 26th time.

Coach Eric Dickerson's team qualified with a 5-4 mark before losing on the road to Carterville in the 4A first round.

This coach is looking to keep the ball rolling into 2026 with some help from some important returning players.

Don'Tay Longstreet, a 6-0, 170 junior wide receiver/defensive back, returns along with
Ethan McLeod, a 5-9, 170 senior running back/linebacker.

Longstreet spent time in the backfield for Marquette, rushing for 400-yards on just 34-carries as a sophomore, which included eight TD's.

He was also one of the top tacklers in the secondary last fall.

Another running back and linebacker is Jhordyn Croft.

Croft is a 5-9, 155 junior who pounded out 524-yards for six touchdowns a year ago.

The quarterbacking duties will be handled by Toby Eberlin, a 6-0, 170 junior.

Eberlin cut some teeth last year as a sophomore, connecting on over half of his passes (48-of-82) for 543-yards and four touchdowns.

Alton Marquette will have five players who will man both sides of the ball on the line.

Simon Water is a 6-3, 230 senior lineman for the Explorers.

He is joined upfront by one of three team captain's; Dylan Kates, who is a 6-0, 255 senior.

Another team captain is Sean Phillips, a 6-0, 255 senior lineman, and 6-2, 260 junior Joey Gaither.

The third captain is senior linebacker 6-2, 260 junior Aidan Hayes.

Although graduation took a bunch of minutes away in the spring, most notably senior Jack Rea (571-yards rushing, 233-yards receiving) the Explorers could be improved this fall.

They will have to be with a much tougher schedule but the 500-win mark isn't out of the question.

“We want to build off of last year's success, 5-4 and back to the playoffs. We have some kids coming back with varsity experience and we will have some new faces in the lineup as well,” said Coach Dickerson.

Although it wasn't what they thought would happen, the Roxana Shells found themselves without a home after the Cahokia Conference voted them out of the league in a dispute over football alignment.

Despite fielding quality teams in all sports, a major change with larger schools set to come in and where the Shells would be pushed down the Illinois Division of the conference.

Roxana wanted to stay with the larger schools.

When Roxana refused, the league voted 16-1 to suspend the school's entire conference membership effective for the 2026–27 school year.

Roxana went 7-4 last fall, with the three regular season defeats coming to three conference playoff teams (Breese Central, Columbia, Freeburg) and the Shells picked up an opening round road playoff win at West Frankfort before a season ending home loss to St. Joseph-Ogden.

The top returning players for the Shells feature a veteran quarterback and an all-conference running back.

Cohen Dugan, a 6-5, 185, runner and passer, is back for Coach Wade DeVries.

Dugan hit 50-of-86 passes last fall for 881-yards and 14 TD's.

He also ran a few times (19) for an additional 58-yards.

Mekhi Shorter, Jr, a 5-6, 145 running back was impressive as a sophomore.

He carried the rock 112-times for 1,377-yards and a team best 15 touchdowns.

Senior tight end 6-2, 240 Aiden Stemm caught 14-passes as a junior, averaging 17.5 yards per catch, with four of the completions for touchdowns.

Five-ten, 240 junior center Mason Shaw will also be one of the offensive starters.

It's the defensive side of the ball that graduation hurt the most.

The top six players with tackles all graduated.

Seniors Brandon Green, Sean Maberry, Max Autery, Dalton Carriker, Lyndon Theis and Logan Prater graduated from the school and gridiron.

Of the defenders returning, look for senior defensive back, 5-8, 145 Jordan Roach to move forward after last season as will Zane Losch, a 5-10, 225 senior defensive lineman.

Both of them showed up prominantly on the defensive stat sheet last fall.

Rashad Murrell, a 5-9, 175 defensive back/running back, is back after playing in five games as a junior.

Add two additional underclassmen to the chart; 5-11, 300 junior defensive lineman Bennett Luck who played in all 11-games last season and Logan Cox, a 5-11 sophomore defensive back.

Coach DeVries has a pair of new starters moving up; 6-1, 175 sophomore linebacker/running back Brody Morris and 5-8, 200 linebacker/lineman Rylee McClellan.

“We are going to have to be very good up front. We have to replace four offensive linemen and our top five defenders from last year. We are going to need some sophomores to step up and play varsity football for us,” said Coach DeVries, who is 44-35 in eight years as the head coach for Roxana but is 26-8 in the past four seasons.