Mason High School is a small-town school with big-time talent. One of the biggest is Sophomore Quarterback Cason Carswell.
As a freshman, Carswell burst onto the scene in the Regional Championship round of the playoffs. In that game, Carswell led his team down the field and threw the game-winning touchdown against a tough Brother Rice team with 10 seconds left. He was then named the starter and led his team to a state semifinal where they faced off with Detroit Martin Luther King(MLK). Although they lost to MLK, it was the school’s best finish ever, and they had found a Quarterback to lead them.
Carswell then came in as a sophomore and broke records. He passed for 2403 yards and 34 touchdowns, both of which are school records. With that, he also tied a school record of six touchdowns in the regional before leading his team to a second straight semifinal, where they once again met up with MLK. How could a school like Mason be able to do that? According to Carswell, it’s all trust. “The summer workouts and practices helped build chemistry between me and the team,” according to Carswell.
Part of the reason Carswell says he was able to pass for 2403 yards and 34 touchdowns goes to the work that he and the offense put in over the summer and the offensive line. He would say the amount of time that the offensive line gave him is what allowed him to make the right throws. Two straight seasons going into semifinal appearances is challenging for any player, especially a young quarterback. Still, Carswell said he was confident going into these games.
Carswell is a fierce competitor, and you can see that on the field pre-game, during the game, and post-game. He said as much, saying, “I get it from my competitiveness and my confidence that we can beat anyone.” We saw that After the quarterfinal game against Trenton, sending them back to a second straight semifinal appearance. He was fired up, saying, “We were going back to play King,” MLK knocked them out the year prior. “We knew we needed our A game, but they got the best of us again.”
Playing MLK is no easy task especially going against Dante Moore, UCLA Commit; however, Carswell said watching Dante played a big role and said he looked at him as a role model by looking at what he does really well to try and take that and use it in his own game.
Not only does Carswell play football, but he is also a guard on the basketball team. He talked about how he could take his game on the court to the field and vice versa. A big thing he can take from one to another is his leadership abilities saying, “I try to act as a leader and direct traffic on the court like I do on the football field.” One thing that he said that you could see as a similarity between both football and basketball is his footwork saying “on defense, the shuffling helps with my dropbacks and cross stepping,” he added, “It just makes me quicker and repetition.”
Community is big for Carswell, and he said as much about the atmosphere they bring to the games all year. “It’s sweet,” he would add. “I think it helps a ton, and we travel real well.” Carswell described it for a road game, saying, “Fans meet at the high school before we leave, and we get escorted, and I think it plays a big factor,” Carswell went further by saying, “The firemen and policemen that escort us out of the town so we can get on the road.”
“We just need to go out and play our best game every week,” Carswell said when talking about what he’s learned from his first two years. He went on to say, “We have to remain confident,” he finished by saying, “I need to lead the team and get more confidence when we are down or down on ourselves so we can keep up that energy.”