BY GARY VAN CLEAVE
Salina Post Contributor
The plains of Kansas could easily be depicted as the plains of Africa when observing Salina Central’s Connor Carter making a tackle.
“He looks like a lion tackling a gazelle,” junior defensive end Saijon Mills said of his Mustang DE counterpart.
Like the hungry lion prides on the rich Serengeti grassland, Carter picks out his feeble target and locks in as his hunger for a ball carrier reaches epic conditions.
“It’s energizing, you don’t really realize it’s a sack until you actually get up and see who you tackled,” the 6-foot-1, 202-pound Mustang junior said. “You hear your teammates screaming your name getting really hyped up. It’s a great feeling especially when it’s a clean tackle, it feels amazing.”
Nobody is more eager for the 2024 season than Carter.
“It’s been fun to get back into football after almost half a year,” he said. “We had practice twice a week and it was a blast getting to reconnect with my teammates. I can’t wait to see where my teammates are at and I have really high hopes for this season regarding how far we can go and the opportunities that we have to eventually get to state this year.”
As a sophomore, Carter played in four games and notched 11 tackles, five of them solo, including a pair of tackles for loss.
While a knee injury sidelined him for two weeks, Carter was energized in his return and had a real impact for the Mustangs last season.
“He’s quick off the start and can make any pass rush move work,” junior DE Jesse Sternberger said. “He can stop the run efficiently and is a tough time for any offensive lineman, big or small.”
“Lengthy, twitchy aggressive and fast paced,” junior safety Kory Serocki said. “He leads by example, always doing the right thing on and off the field and always locked in.”
For all the production Carter is expected to bring off the field, all of that is the product of the work he puts in off the field.
“He is a great competitor and a great friend and teammate,” junior DE Kaden Snyder said. “He might not have always been the fastest or the most athletic, but he works really hard and is getting stronger and faster everyday.”
Carter said he’s been dialed in on hitting the weights this summer.
“I've also been working on being more aggressive with hand fighting and more accurate with my hand placement,” Carter said.
Those efforts have also been recognized by Carter's teammates in the trenches who will welcome him back into their hunting pack in 2024.
“Connor has a big role on our team and he does his job really well,” senior lineman James MacKinney said. “He is relentless and never gives up on plays. I remember last year he ran me over in a game trying to chase down a ball.”
“Hard-working, persistent Beast,” senior receiver Drew Schneweis said.
“Connor is a dog out there. He has a great mentality and is very tough,” Mills said.
A few things came to mind when Carter was asked what makes a good defensive end.
“Being able to react to the guy across from you and to be able to redirect your body where it needs to go as fast as you can,” he said. “Also, knowing when to go screaming into the backfield and when to stay in your gap so no one can get through.”
“Connor is a lead-by-example kind of guy and always does the right thing,” MacKinney said. “He shows up to every lifting session and he puts in the extra work off the field. He helps our whole D-line get better every time he is on the field. He’s improved a lot this summer. He's added more than 15 pounds of muscle and has improved his techniques tenfold.”
While many would be happy to simply be an impact player at the high school level, Carter hopes to hone his skills someday at the collegiate level.
“It’s something that I have been thinking a lot about these past couple weeks,” Carter said. “I can’t wait to start putting myself out there to hopefully get some offers from different colleges.”
The Mustangs open their 2024 campaign against the cross-town rival Salina South Cougars on Friday, September 6 at Salina Stadium.