In his team's 53-17 season opening win at Wentzville Holt Friday, new Francis Howell quarterback Eric Siebenshuh seemed right at home as he took the reins from graduated Howell star quarterback Brett Graves.
From the first drive in which he completed passes for most of the 96 yards needed to find the end zone, on a 36-yard pass to Corey King, to one of his final passes of the game, a 12-yard scoring strike to John Haarmann, Siebenshuh hardly wavered.
"This feels great," Siebenshuh said. "I want to keep working hard and playing well and we'll get some more wins."
If the quarterback can continue to throw the ball like he did in the victory, the wins should take care of themselves.
All told, Siebenshuh completed 16 of 28 passes for 352 yards and five touchdowns despite three interceptions.
"It is good to have the ball in his hands," Howell coach Bryan Koch said. "He's doing an amazing job of taking over this quarterback role. He's just off and running with it."
The interceptions were something the 6-foot-4, 205 pound signal caller knew he had to forget about just as he finished throwing them.
That had to be the case, even if one of them was hard to forget. Hard because the interception he threw to Holt's Ethan Nixon resulted in a 48-yard return for touchdown.
"You have to forget it," Siebenshuh said. "If it's on your mind, then it is going to haunt you for the rest of the game. Because then you're going to be thinking about that play instead of moving forward."
Koch said he had no doubts that Siebenshuh would get the job done, especially after Siebenshuh made a mistake on occasion.
"He has a very quick memory," Koch said. "He threw that pick-six (interception for a score) and then he came right back and threw an 87-yard touchdown. We preach that at practice over and over and over. It's just ‘next play, next play, next play.' We tell our kids we'll mess up in practice and we'll take care of it on film. We're not going to dwell on things."
One great thing for Siebenshuh Friday was that he had a veritable bevy of receivers to find.
He threw scores to three receivers. Corey King was his favorite target when the Vikings needed to find the end zone as he caught ball for scores from 36, 19 and 10 yards.
Siebenshuh also seemed to hook up with Alex Strong on some big plays early as Strong had three catches for 125 yards and one score by halftime.\
"It's great, because we can mix it around," Siebenshuh said. "It makes it so they can double cover anyone, so everyone is open."
Siebenshuh also added a 4-yard run for score in the victory.
While Koch said he finds Siebenshuh to be an impressive quarterback, he finds him to be something even more.
He's just an impressive person.
"Yeah, he's a great quarterback," Koch said. "Yeah, he's a great leader. Yeah, he's becoming a great football player. The thing is, though, that you will not find a better young man, hands down. Luckily, our program is full of that. (There are) just a bunch of quality kids that lay everything out on Friday night."
