Meet Lake O’s Returning State Championship Squad

#8 Jack Anderson
ATH/FS (6-3 195 Jr.)

Typically you wouldn’t hear about what the returning State Champion Lake Oswego Lakers team looked like until July or August of next year’s summer months. At NEI we live and breathe football so that era has come to an end. Let’s take a look at another phenomenal group of athletes from the Lake that just helped LO get their first ever state title.

Where they will scare most people is defensively. Their undersized and inexperienced line caused fits for much bigger opponents all season long, and for the most part they are all coming back.
Noah Peterson (6-4 290 Jr. OL), Austin Faunce (6-1 220 Jr. DL/OL), Kyle Peterson (6-1 215 C/DL), and Spencer Anderson (6-3 200 Jr. DE) will all be called upon to continue the mayhem they created up front in 2011.

Noah Peterson is fast becoming one of the most dominant and recruited O lineman in the Northwest, as he will anchor an offensive line that is as fundamentally sound as they come. He is big, fast, and extremely athletic and crushed other kids his size all season long. Noah is considered one of top 30 overall players in state of Oregon for the class of 2013, and will be on a variety of Pac 12 recruiting boards come next season. His wrestling ability speaks volumes about him as an athlete, and he should be an exciting player to watch on the NEI/Barton Tour in the off season.

Noah says, “ I think we have an awesome class coming back and will be one of the top teams, personally I want to win another state title and move on to play college ball”. He continued,”We have some positions to fill, but I think we will have some guys step up”
He also added “ I wrestle at 285, but Austin Faunce is a really amazing wrestler and was on the Oregon National team for Greco last year”.

When you talk about athletic you have to look at Faunce. He is considered one of the top wrestlers in the state, and was a force on both sides of the ball last season. His weight has fluctuated a great deal due to wrestling, but his ability to create matchup problems with most everyone has proved very effective. He is super quick and someone that bigger lineman hate to go against.

Add in Kyle Peterson, and Spencer Anderson and you have two additional returning starters from last season that flat out got the job done . Between the four of them most teams won’t be able to matchup and that’s where the backers and DB’s will take advantage.

Mitch Lomax (6-4 240 Jr.) is considered the top junior linebacker in Oregon, and was a unanimous first team all league selection in 2011. His NFL genes and overall athleticism are very apparent as he fly’s to the ball play after play. He will most likely have a multitude of division one offers before the season starts. Head Coach Steve Coury says, “ Mitch is the real deal, and really came into his own last season, we expect nothing but more great things from him moving forward”.

Schools such as Oregon St could be some of the first to jump on the Lomax bandwagon. Mitch will also play Tight end and take over duties from All State athlete Zach Walen who is Portland St bound. With his size and WR Connor Griffin’s (6-4 200 Jr.) ever improving set of receiving skills the Lakers will have a formidable set of threats on the outside.

The other most talented player on both sides of the ball is going to be none other then Jack Anderson (6-3 195 Jr SB/S). The kid was an absolute assassin in the defensive backfield leading the state in Int’s (9) and earning first team all league honors at Safety.

Jack says, “ Im really excited and I feel confident that we will be one of the top teams in the state again next year..Off season workouts are going to be HUGE and that is when we could go from being one of the best to maybe the best like last season”.

Anderson continued, “One of our strengths is going to be our line with 3 starters and others coming back with experience, I wouldn’t trade our guys for anyone…Our only weakness I could for see would be the 27 seniors that we lose, you just can’t replace guys like that”.

You can also expect Jack to be the go to guy on offense as he just got better and better as the season progressed. He is another kid with D1 potential and currently ranked as one of the top 30 players in Oregon.
“We just had a meeting with our junior class and it was helpful to get on the same page, we don’t want to be satisfied with just one state championship and want to make it a senior year to remember”. Anderson added, “personally I would like to lead the state in Interceptions again and do whatever my team needs me to do on offense..Its going to be an exciting year and I can’t wait”.

The final pieces to the puzzle come with two current sophomores in Nick Underwood (6-2 205 So. LB/FB) and Jordan Horak (6-1 190 So. ATH/S). Underwood was an honorable mention all league kid, and was ranked as one of the top 20 Soph’s in Oregon as was Horak.

Jordan Horak had a phenomenal post season and will be considered one of the top DB’s in the state to go along with Jack Anderson. Horak is still growing and will come into next season with a ton of experience and an unbelievable work ethic. First team all state senior receiver Stevie Coury says” have you seen the kids hands, they are ridiculously big” referring to his potential growth.

The Lakers went (14-0) and finished 25th in the country last season adding themselves to the conversation as one of the greatest teams to ever represent Oregon. Its not every year that a team from this state makes a run and wins in such dominating fashion. The Lakers beat a Nationally ranked Sheldon squad and a very good Jesuit team twice to win the title, so repeating such a feat will be nothing short of difficult.

We look forward to covering one of the classiest and most well run programs on the west coast, and wish Head Coach Steve Coury and all of these great athletes nothing but success moving forward.