Six players, including four seniors, have been selected as team captains for the upcoming 2016 football season at South Dakota State University.
Leading the group are returning captains Zach Lujan and Jacob Ohnesorge. A senior quarterback from Anchorage, Alaska, Lujan has started 15 games over the past two seasons and threw for team highs of 1,861 yards and 14 touchdowns in splitting signal-caller duties in 2015.
Ohnesorge, a junior from Waunakee, Wisconsin, started all 26 games at center over the past two seasons. He was a second-team all-Missouri Valley Football Conference honoree in 2015.
Fellow junior Brady Mengarelli completes the group of captains for the Jackrabbit offense. A native of Prescott, Arizona, Mengarelli gained a team-high 742 rushing yards and scored six touchdowns last season. He added 23 receptions for 232 yards and two more scores out of the backfield.
Seniors Jesse Bobbit, Shayne Gottlob and Nick Mears make up the captains on the defensive side of the ball. Bobbit, from Palatine, Illinois, has registered 90 or more tackles in back-to-back seasons, including finishing second on the squad with 97 stops in 2015.
Gottlob has started 15 games over the past two seasons, highlighted by drawing a starting assignment in 12 games as a sophomore in 2014. The Salem product recorded 31 tackles, 2.5 of which were for loss, last season.
Mears is a two-year starter at strong safety for the Jackrabbits. The Milbank native was the team’s second-leading tackler in 2014 with 96 stops, than added 54 tackles and a pair of forced fumbles in nine games last season.
The Jackrabbits wrap up spring practice this week, culminating with the annual Spring Game Saturday afternoon. Start time is set for 3:30 p.m. at the Sanford-Jackrabbit Athletic Complex.
