North Manchester, Ind. - With the 2025 Football season complete, the HCAC honored standout players throughout the conference. Manchester Football received ten All-Conference Honors, featuring Jaydon Berkley as First-Team return specialist. Four Spartans, Angel Estrada (P), Zalin Ingram (WR), Ethan Skinner (TE), Ziare Sullivan (DL), all earned Second-Team All-Conference Honors. Luke Davis (LS), Culvin Gilbert (DL), Blake Haiflich (LB), Kaleb Hall (QB), and Luke Martin (OL) earned All-Conference Honorable Mention for the 2025 season. 

2025 Season Recap: 

It is a day unlike any other you step out of your car and look up at a gray cloudy sky on an overcast day; you can feel the wind whipping around as it rips the leaves off the nearby oak trees. The breeze flows across your face as you walk from the parking lot and begin to make out the faint sound of instruments playing. As you come closer to your destination you walk up on the red brick gate where you see a plaque with the words inscribed "Honor comes from playing by the rules". You have now arrived at Spartan Stadium for a football game.

This is a feeling that we will have to wait another year to experience again as the 100th season in Manchester Football history has come to a close. MU has a rich tradition of both academic and athletic excellence, the tremendous student athletes who take the field every year work their hardest to uphold the history and tradition of those that came before them. Striving to live up to the words of R Wayne Smith '49 that are inscribed on the plaque entering the stadium.

The 100th season in MU Football history came with many great strides for Manchester Football. The offense was explosive at times putting up prolific performances, The defense was aggressive and created many game changing plays, while Special Teams was steady with many memorable moments generating momentum.

OFFFENSE

The 2025 Manchester football Offense started out hot and kept it going through the entire season. The record setting Offense this year was paced by one of the best passing attacks in MU Football history. The prolific passing game produced the most yardage an MU offense has seen since 2014. The 2025 version of MU football ranks in the top 5 overall in both passing Yards and Passing TD's.

MU's passing attack was led this season by Senior QB Kaleb Hall. Hall had one of the best individual passing season in MU history finishing 4th in many individual categories for season totals: Completions (181), TD's (15), Passing Yards (1980). Hall connected with 12 different receivers on the year with each of his top 4 targets eclipsing the 300 yd mark on the season. Leading Receiver Zalin Ingram (482) recorded the most receiving yards by a Spartan since the 2017 season.

The passing game featured many great individual performances with multiple100 YD receiving performances on the year produced by 3 separate Spartan athletes: Zalin Ingram (twice), Marquez Williams, and Levarian Campbell. The year also produced a landmark season from Tight End Ethan Skinner where he led the HCAC in receiving yards for TE's and also recorded a single game high of 11 receptions which ranks 9th in any game for a player in Spartan History.

The spartan offense recorded these numbers with heavy contributions from 5 Offensive lineman who were First Year players this season. The offense ended the season with Hall and his offensive line completing his best performance of the year, the 6th best passing game in MU history (348) and the 5th highest individual offensive total (382).

DEFENSE

Defensively the Spartans mustered up many hallmark performances highlighted by the ability to continue the trend of being a defense that creates havoc in the backfield. This season saw, the Spartans once again produce one of the HCAC's leading sack totals. The Spartans as a defense recorded 21 sacks on the season, which was good enough to land the Spartans in the top 1/3 of all NCAA DIII teams in sack totals for the year. 7 Different Spartans recorded a Sack this year paced by the HCAC individual sack leader Zaire Sullivan. Sullivan's 9.5 Sacks led the HCAC and were also good enough for 2nd all time in a single season in Manchester history.

The spartan Defense also racked up 52 tackles for loss on the season which landed the Spartans toward the top of the HCAC. 15 different Spartans recorded a TFL, the spartan Defense was once again paced by Sullivan who finished 2nd in the HCAC with 12.5 TFL's which is good enough for the 7th highest by a spartan in a season. 4 other Spartans had over 5 TFL's on the season: Culvin Gilbert, Talen Garner, Kameron Landrum, and Blake Haiflich.

SPECIAL TEAMS

The Spartans Special teams units performance all season long created opportunities for both the offense and the defense, and allowed for the team to be set up in great position. The special teams units were led by Angel Estrada and the Punt unit. Estrada finished the season as the HCAC leader in Total punt yards with an AVG of 37.9 on the year and 39.4 during HCAC play. Estrada's 2,503 total yards were good enough for 3rd in all of NCAA DIII. Estrada also led the HCAC in 50+ Yard kicks (10) and Kicks downed inside the 20 yard line (14).

The Spartan Return units also made their mark leading the HCAC in total return yards, and finishing 3rd in overall average. The Spartans Kick return units saw many explosive returns on the season with 8 returns of over 30 yards and 4 returns of over 40 on the year. The unit was led by Jaydon Berkley who finished one of the most prolific return seasons in MU history finishing 17th in NCAA DIII in total kick return yards. Berkley had long returns on the year of (51, 50, 41, 39). Berkely's top performance came in week 6 vs. Capital University where he set the HCAC record for Kick Off return yards in a game (228).

Although we will have to wait until next September for another opportunity to watch spartan football, the great performances the 2025 season brought us let us know the future is bright at MU.