Before senior Elijah Duncan kicks, he is completely focused. He thinks about where the ball is going to land, and if he’ll have good accuracy. It is his first year playing football. It was when Duncan was a junior coach at Powder Puff practice kicking footballs that he discovered his talent for the game and decided to go out for the team.
“I didn’t realize how good I was, so I tried out and made it,” Duncan said.
His teammates help him by cheering him on and giving him confidence, through compliments and encouragement.
“First game day, I didn’t know what to expect out of myself. I just did what I had to do and I guess I didn’t do bad,” Duncan said.
Nobody else tried out for kicker and head coach Jay Gibson was happy Duncan did.
“It was really nice. [Junior Tyler Berginski] came up to me and said ‘Hey, this is Eli, and he wants to kick’,” Gibson said. “I said kick for me. He kicked a few field goals for me, and he was very accurate. So I just looked at him and said, ‘You’re hired.’”
His teammates were also surprised at his talent. Senior Brody Mertz, defensive end and tackle, said that for his first year kicking he’s very good, and he likes having a kicker.
“It sets our defense up in a good position after a kickoff and when we score it always matters to get that extra point,” Mertz said.
Duncan does more for his team then just kick; he also punts.
“He’s been working on his kick off, but as a bonus, which I didn’t even know, he became our punter,” Gibson said. “He’s filling the roles of sometimes three separate kickers.”
Even though it seems rare, playing kicker for the first time as a senior is not uncommon.
“It’s actually happened quite a few times. In the past we’ve had a soccer player be our kicker,” said Gibson. “It’s kind of hard to have a football player because mostly they tackle and block and catch footballs, but you’re not really using your feet to kick the ball, so somewhere along the line you would have had some training to be a kicker. We typically don’t have a good kicker. I’m excited about having Eli.”
In the Packer’s first three games, Duncan scored 12 points.
“He was a big pickup,” Gibson said. “That was a nice addition to our team.”