Anna Football Finds Focus, Has ‘Something To Prove’ To MAC And State

The Rockets want more – a lot more – than to be regional runner-up again. After three straight misses at the state semifinals, Anna returns enough talent to be confident in its goal of doing what the 2019 team did: win a state championship.

Anna, OH – Logan Ziegenbusch remembers the important football stuff he’s stashed away over the years.

Not decades or anything. He’s only a junior in high school.

But ask the young quarterback anything about his 2026 Anna football team, and he recites a bullet-point list like it’s a sticky note in his long-term memory.

“Logan, what has Anna football become?”

“Our five football musts: put in the work, be humble, be disciplined, own it and do what’s right,” he rattles off with the same cadence he uses at the line of scrimmage.

Those musts – what many programs refer to as core values – have yielded winning results more often than not in Nick Marino’s first 11 years as head coach. That list helped his 2018 and 2019 teams share Midwest Athletic Conference titles. And they took the 2019 team all the way to the Division VI state championship.

The 2026 Rockets’ clear goal is to match the 2019 team, a group that gave the school its only state title. Quite an accomplishment for a program that didn’t exist before 2000.

The 2019 team didn’t come out of nowhere, but they had not been through the near misses this year’s team has.

The 2023 team made an unexpected run to the regional final after a 5-5 regular season. The past two seasons the Rockets finished 10-4 with losses to Coldwater in the regional final.

“Logan, how does Anna get over the hump this year and make it to state?”

“Just need to play as a team,” he begins. “That’s what it is. No excuses. Play as one. Do your job. Execute. That’s what it comes down to.”

Ziegenbusch wants to be the player to lead the Rockets over that hump and all the way to Canton for a shot at state immortality, to prove Anna football can be champions again. He won the quarterback job as a sophomore, led the MAC in passing with 1,513 yards and rushed for 999 yards. He finished second in the league’s offensive player of the year voting to St. Henry senior Charlie Werling.

Ziegenbusch got better as the season progressed, and he admitted it took him four games to be who his team needed him to be.

“From there just being more of a leader, vocally, and just building my guys up even when they’re down,” he said. “Being kind of like the good cop to our coaches’ bad cop.”

The Rockets beat Coldwater in the fourth game, cementing Ziegenbusch as a leader. Eventual Division VII champion St. Henry got them 28-7 and Marion Local got them 28-27 in double overtime.  But belief was built and the Rockets rolled through three playoff foes before losing 14-12 to Coldwater.

“I thought coming into the year he was going to be a running quarterback,” Marino said. “He exceeded my expectations as a passer, and that was because he works hard and he’s really smart, picks things up. We coach him up on the details, and he remembers those details a lot of times.”

Ziegenbusch, his teammates and coaches remember the way the past three years ended. They know their list of “musts,” the playbook and what is required to be champions. But their memories won’t be complete if – when they think about their high school days – 2026 isn’t remembered as a championship season.

“We lost three years in a row,” senior linebacker Grant Beckman said. “We don’t want to do that again.”

Beckman’s added motivation is coming back from a broken foot that cost him most of his junior season.

“Knowing I only have one more year left to do what I want to do, and I lost half of last season, I’m really fired up for this year, ready to go,” he said.

The expectations to compete for the MAC title and earn the opportunity to play for a state title are inescapable for the Rockets. That’s nothing new for the best teams in the MAC, especially when those teams have a wealth of returning talent as Anna does.

Ziegenbusch’s best playmaker last year was Zeb Pleiman and his 53 receptions. But Ziegenbusch is confident in the crew he has to throw to and hand off to.

“We have a ton of guys returning, especially out of that receiver core,” Ziegenbusch said. “I’ve been playing with most of these guys for my whole life, so I feel like we have a good connection.”

The defense lost first-team all-state lineman Nolan Wilt and first-team linebacker Landon Hewitt. Beckman and defensive end Julian Stearns, a third-team all-stater, will lead the defense.

“I like our defense,” Beckman said. “Nolan Wilt is going to be a big gap that we got to fill, but we’ve had our guys step into that role really well. I feel like our defense is going to be good. We just got to make sure we’re getting better every day and not get complacent.”

There’s no time to become complacent in the MAC. That will get you beat.

So will enjoying the noise of hearing how good you’re supposed to be. Marino ignores the noise and only mentions it when he tells his team to ignore it.

“We’re not looking at any of that,” Marino said. “You hear about it, and when we talk to you, that’s what we talk about a little bit.”

The focus, as it should be, is day to day. And Marino has another list for what that requires to avoid distractions and complacency.

“Are we competing hard enough in practice to get ourselves over the hump?”

“Every day in film, are we watching, paying attention?”

“Are we getting better? Obviously, in our league, if you don’t get better, you get your butt kicked.”

In this, the first week of mandatory practice, the Rockets are practicing everything on their lists. Beckman’s answer to what football has become in Anna added some important concepts to the “musts” that Ziegenbusch recited.

“It’s become a connection between us and the town, and it means a lot to be able to play for them,” Beckman said. “From the team perspective, just being able to make each other better every day in practice, going hard, and knowing that we’re not just doing it for us.

“That we’ve got something to prove.”