By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

ST. MARTIN — St. Martin enters the upcoming football season on a 17-game losing streak, one that started in 2022 and includes a 0-10 season last year as well as 17 straight region losses over the past three seasons
Third-year Yellow Jacket head coach Ty Smith now looks to get St. Martin back into the South State playoffs for the first time in six years.
“This has been by far the best off-season we’ve had since i’ve been here,” Smith said, in a recent interview. “The best attendance, the best workouts, and the best attitudes. Our leadership on this team is so much further ahead of where it was when I first took over.”
The Yellow Jackets fielded a young team for the most part last season, but that allowed the returning players to get in a lot of action as well.

“We had some of the best practices since I’ve been here in weeks eight and nine last year,” Smith added. “Our kids showed up to practice everyday like we were getting ready for a playoff game. A lot of teams, after they see that the season is not going the way that they want it to, they will tap out. They will quit. The coaches, the kids, everybody kept pushing and kept working.”
St. Martin will have to replace versatile standout Noreel White, who took his talents to Ole Miss.
St. Martin will turn to a new quarterback in sophomore Kevin Marshall who will look to senior wide out Monclair Brave, among others, to make plays offensively.
“We’re still pretty young on offense, but that excites me.” Smith continued. “And while we’re young at some spots on defense we also have some seniors in key spots as well.”

Romane Grant, a 6-foot-3, 290-pound senior standout defensive lineman, looks to lead the Yellow Jackets on the other side of the ball and he has committed to play at the Naval Academy next year. Linebacker Noel Entrada, another senior, will be counted upon heavily as well defensively as will junior defensive linemen Jayden Curtis and Caleb Estrada.
“Last year we had a lot of young players on the team and on the field,” Smith said. “But I think these players now trust in themselves. They have bought in to what we’re doing to build this program and they trust the process.
“The biggest thing is I want these kids to understand how proud of them we are as a staff. From the top on down they are showing up, they are working. I wouldn’t trade last year for anything. The lessons these players learned should pay off for them.”