Photo submitted by Dylan Lindstrom. The 2025 Yellow Medicine East football team includes Joey Sillivent, Dane Hildahl, Hayden Kuehn, Kolten Blankenhagen, Caysen Lien, Liam Anderson, Gunnar Fagen, Beau Thull, Jack Mensink, Drew Monson, Leonidas Robledo, Lane Wohlman, Cooper McCosh, Joel Hidalgo, Trae Jones, Owen Slettedahl, Harley Labat, Anthony Guzman Melendez, Aaden Kuehn, Mathias Vonderharr, Will Pederson, Breck Martin, Easton Jaenisch, Michael Guertin, Zach Odell, Calvin Mead and Seth Lecy.

GRANITE FALLS — The Yellow Medicine East football team has a new head coach and new lineup ahead of the 2025 season, looking to move the program into a winning direction. 

The Sting will now be led by Gregg Blanchette, who is making the move back to Minnesota from Illinois after living around the Chicago area the last 20 years. He takes over the program from former coach Lucas Damm, who now teaches at Minneota and is on the Vikings’ football coaching staff. 

YME is coming off a 2024 winless season, and the program graduated a core group of five seniors, including quarterback Jacob Peterson. 

Senior Cooper McCosh, 6-foot-3, will be stepping into the new role of starting quarterback to begin the season. Last year, he played as a tight end and linebacker. 

But, despite the changes, YME has several returners this season with another young core, led by seven seniors as they look to trend upward and move forward. 

“Obviously, we would like to win. We’re growing and developing. We got a good group that is coming back and returning, and we want to compete every game,” assistant Dylan Lindstrom said, who’s been on the coaching staff the last few years. “We have a great group of kids [that have] worked really hard, and it’s been fun … The kids are excited, and we’re excited.” 

YME will look to lean on its senior leadership of veteran experience in Hayden and Aaden Kuehn, Leonidas Robledo, McCosh, Will Pederson, Zach Odell, and Seth Lecy. 

“They’ve played and understand what we expect, which is nice,” Lindstrom said. “Then, we have a couple younger kids that are going to be growing, too.” 

The Sting holds a large group of 11 sophomores this year, to partner with their nine juniors. 

Along with McCosh stepping into a new role, another returning trio that will look to deepen their responsibilities on the field even more this year is sophomore Gunnar Fagen, junior Drew Monson and sophomore Liam Anderson. 

Blanchette said he’s enjoyed working with his new team and getting to know everyone, and said they’ve been working on shifting around some players’ roles. He noted that he feels good in the preparation the team has done during their preseason camp. 

“We’re trying some different things, with a little different offenses here than what we’ve had in the past,” Lindstrom said.  

Blanchette comes to Granite Falls with familiarity in the area, and used to live in Minnesota for about 15 years before his family moved to Illinois. He has family that lives in the area and farms, which served as a driving force in wanting to return. 

During his time in Illinois, Blanchette said he’s been a football coach at the high school level for 10 years at Bishop McNamara Catholic in Kankakee, about an hour south of Chicago, where he also went to school growing up. 

Blanchette brings a winning-mentality to YME, who helped lead Bishop McNamara to a state championship title in 2015 when he was on the coaching staff, alongside then-head coach Rich Zinanni. 

Blanchette said Zinanni is one of his mentors when it comes to coaching, who led Bishop McNamara to five state championships, was head coach of the program for 46 years, and was recently inducted into the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame over the summer. 

Yet, Blanchette has kept in touch with his local ties in the region over the years, and is also a graduate of Southwest Minnesota State University. He noted he also knows a lot of the players’ families from when he used to live in the area. 

“This town has really held a soft spot in my heart and I didn’t ever realize we were going to get this opportunity,” Blanchette said. “We are really excited and very thankful.” 

The Still opens up the season today on their home field, and will host Russell-Tyler-Ruthton at 7 p.m. 

The two teams have not met since the 2022 season, in which YME won 32-0. 

RTR, who is also being led under a new head coach in Ted Kern, finished last season 2-7 overall.  

From there, YME will travel to take on Dawson-Boyd in its first road game on Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.