Sweet Home’s Hunter Jutte left his mark Saturday, Aug. 1, at the 63rd annual East-West Shrine All-Star Football Game in Baker City.
Jutte played the entire game on defense, as his East Team won 25-0, breaking a five-year losing streak, Sweet Home Coach Dustin Nichol said.
“Hunter had quite a few tackles and then he had an interception at the end to put the nail in the coffin,” Nichol said. “He told me he had a blast.”
Jutte played wide receiver, defensive back, punter and placekicker for Sweet Home last year. He did all the kicking for the East team Saturday, putting his unique punt-on-the-run ability to use.
The East team was made up of top players from 1A to 4A high schools from eastern, central and southern Oregon. The last Sweet Home player to participate was Wade Paulus, in 2013, though Husky cheerleaders have regularly taken part in the game. All players are selected after being nominated by their coaches and cheerleaders are selected through the Oregon Cheerleading Coaches Association.
Participating this year were cheer team members Erin Bauer, Mikayla Crompton, Alex Olin, Natalie Thorpe, Brittany Zook. Crompton and Thorpe were there for their fourth time, following in the footsteps of Thorpe’s sister Taylor, who accomplished the same feat.
In addition to Jutte, East players were Clay Bentz of Burns, Mauricio Boydston of Gold Beach, Bryon Brown of Junction City, Safe DeLong of Vale, Ray Denig of Pine Eagle, Denten Edwards of St. Mary’s, Blake Evans of Sherman County, Moe Faith of Coquille, Austin Feist of Burns, Tristan Hay of Phoenix, Hunter Jelden of Harrisburg, Michael Johnson of Pleasant Hill, Jordan Kendall of North Marion, Daniel Kohlhepp of Enterprise, Joey Lancaster of Mazama, Jack Lehman of Philomath, Nick Little of Dufur, Clay McClure of Culver, Damien Olvera of Nyssa, Jacob Podolski of McLoughlin, John Propheter of Heppner, James Thompson of Illinois Valley, Ben Turner of Ontario, Chase Walker of Adrian, Zane Wardwell of Elmira and Andrew Weber of Vale.
The game is a fund-raiser for the Shriners Hospital ior Children in Portland and participants visited the hospital as part of the week leading up to the game. The event also includes a parade prior to the game.
The Shrine Game is being aired this week on ROOT Sports Network: Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 9 a.m.; Thursday, Aug. 6, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 9, at noon.