Portland Football preparing for 2025 season

On Monday, August 11^th, the Portland High School football program kicked off their 2025 season.  Despite high temperatures, high pollen, and some Canadian wild fire smoke, Portland Head coach John Novara was very pleased with how his team did.  Novara said, “We had a great first week.  The guys came in in shape and ready to go.  It was very hot but we were very focused and we got a lot of work done.”

The Raiders will have league games for weeks two through eight, and when asked his thoughts about the CAAC White this year, Novara said, “Our league is always tough.  We are going to see tough Sexton and Olivet teams in the first three weeks.  I think Lakewood is going to be good this year too.  In our league you have to be ready to play every week.”

Portland will have a couple of challenging non-league contests in weeks one and nine.  To open the season, they will host Detroit Country Day, and the last regular season game will be at Whitehall.  Novara said, “Detroit Country Day will be a big challenge.  They are a talented team with a lot of potential division one college players.  Whitehall consistently has great athletes and they are coached very well. Having strong opponents like this in week one and week nine will really help us prepare for the playoffs.”

The Portland program lost several highly talented and experienced players in last year’s graduating class.  Standout receiver Christopher Battley will be playing at Northern Michigan University.  Cody Hengesbach and Thomas Perron have moved on to play football at Davenport University.  Evan Gross will be playing basketball at Lansing Community College.  Quarterback Dominic Novara, lineman Carter Higbee, and leading tackler from 2024 AJ Weber have also moved on.

In addition to the losses to graduation, two juniors from 2024 will not return for the 2025 season.  Brody Moore will not be playing this year due to an injury.  Novara said, “Brady is a big loss for us.  He was a great player on both sides of the ball.”  Another junior from 2024 will not return due to personal reasons.

Despite the losses in terms of talent and experience, the Raiders also have a talented group of returning varsity players.  Leading rushers from 2024 Kaden Dickerson and Nolan Zbytowski both return.  Novara said, “We have five returners on offense and four on defense.  We also have plenty of guys who had a lot of quality reps last year.”  He added, “I really like our o-line right now.  Guys with lots of reps.”

Some other key returning players include Brad Meyers at linebacker, Max Sandborn at receiver, along with Sawyer Goodman, Carter White, Caleb Densmore and Gunnar Williams.  Novara said, “Goodman had a lot of quality reps last year.  Carter missed most of last season with a knee injury and is back looking good on both sides of the ball.  Densmore is looking great at center and saw time in every game last year. Gunner Williams looked great all week in practice.”

As for in incoming junior class, Novara said, “These guys have been successful in our program.  They went undefeated at JV last year.  They are showing a lot of progress in catching up to the varsity speed in practice.” 

The Raiders will head to Grand Ledge this Thursday for a scrimmage with Grand Ledge, St. Johns, and Chelsea.  The varsity scrimmage is set to begin at 7:30. 

Novara said, “We are very excited.  We have a lot of talent.  We may be a bit short on depth versus last year, but we have a ton of potential.”

The live streams of varsity home football games is moving for 2025 from YouTube to Hudl.  Fans can live stream at https://fan.hudl.com/portlandraiders

Thursday	8/28/25	Detroit Country Day (Junior Raider Night)	Home	7:00 PM
Friday	9/5/25	Lansing Sexton*	Away	7:00 PM
Friday	9/12/25	Olivet*	Away	7:00 PM
Friday	9/19/25	Ionia*	Home	7:00 PM
Friday	9/26/25	Lakewood* (Homecoming and last year’s champions)	Home	7:00 PM
Friday	10/3/25	Lansing Catholic* (Band Night)	Home	7:00 PM
Friday	10/10/25	Eaton Rapids*	Away	7:00 PM
Friday	10/17/25	Charlotte* (Senior Night)	Home	7:00 PM
Friday	10/24/25	Whitehall	Away	7:00 PM

*=CAAC White