By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
MILL CITY, Ore.– Isaac Martinez has been on a tear this season for the Santiam Football, anchoring the Wolverines backfield in Santiam’s renaissance back to the Varsity level. With two four rushing touchdown games this year, the Wolverines are off to their strongest start since the 2022 season when they started the season 4-2.
The junior, who was at Cascade High School last season, has stepped into a leadership role with the 2A Wolverines just up the road.
“When I came here, I had a big role to be a leader, and I help out my teammates with everything they need. If that’s play calling, if they don’t know the play, stuff like that, I help them out a lot, and it feels great being a part of the program,” said Martinez. “Coming out here to practice, work hard. Execute. Discipline and everything and try to get better every day.”
Santiam had a standard of being disciplined of sorts with their football team. It wasn’t long ago that the Wolverines were contending for the State Title, having gone to back-to-back State Title games in 2017 and 2018 and were a steady 2A Playoff team until recently when the team fell on some lean years. But after going winless in 2023 and having a short JV-only season last Fall, Santiam may be making the turn back into relevancy once more four games in.
“Our main focus is to go far into the playoffs. Make it somewhere. We come out here every day. We work our tails off to just get better and to come out here after two years of not having a football team and having a good football team this year,” said Martinez. “Santiam hasn’t had a football team in two years. It feels great being a part of this program and changing it to the top.”
The Wolverines will look to make it a 4-1 start to the year Friday when they travel to Corbett to play the Cardinals. Corbett are coming off a marathon game that saw them falling to Rainier 101-90. Yeah, a basketball score.
But nonetheless, preparation started Monday night for that big road trip ahead of them at 7 pm on Friday night.
“It’s going to be a big game, but as long as we go in there, play our tails off on offense and defense, I think we’ll have a good chance,” said Martinez.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
