Neuqua Valley senior quarterback Drake Mennecke is continuing a family tradition in more ways than one.
A second-year starter, Drake Mennecke is following in the footsteps of his older brother Mark, who also starred at quarterback for the Wildcats and plays baseball at Western Michigan.
Drake Mennecke wears No. 13, just like Mark did, although it’s not in homage to him.
“It’s more of a family thing,” Drake Mennecke said. “My dad really likes the number 13, and from there we all just kind of made it our favorite. It’s our lucky number.”
The Wildcats (1-2) feel lucky to have Drake Mennecke under center this season.
“He’s a dynamic quarterback,” Neuqua Valley coach Bill Ellinghaus said. “When he settles down and throws the ball the way he’s capable of, he’s as good as anybody out there. He’s got a tremendous arm.”
Similar compliments were said about Mark Mennecke, who has always been a role model for Drake.
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“The first time I actually remember seeing him play was on the Neuqua feeder team, when he would play with a bunch of the other guys that would go to Neuqua,” Drake Mennecke said. “The one thing he would always tell me is just go out there and have fun, like play with no fear.
“So I kind of keep that in the back of my mind when I go out and play.”
Drake Mennecke also doesn’t fear working hard, which he knew he had to do if he was going to improve on his junior season. So he put in the practice in the offseason.
“Definitely working in the offseason got me better, working with my receivers,” he said. “We’d go and try to find work anywhere we could. That was pretty much it.”
Drake Mennecke’s coaches and teammates have noticed the improvement.
“Drake has gotten much better,” Ellinghaus said. “He’s taken over a leadership role, which has been great to see. He is more of a dual threat this year than he was last year.”
That’s also a family tradition. Mark Mennecke excelled as a runner and a passer, and Drake is showing signs of increasing his production on the ground.
That was evident during the Wildcats’ 49-14 loss to unbeaten Hersey in Naperville on Friday night. Drake Mennecke, who threw for one touchdown and rushed for another, completed 12 of 27 passes for 101 yards and rushed for 57 yards on 10 carries.
A 10-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver/tight end Joshua Repmann was an example of Drake Mennecke’s maturation as a passer. He pump-faked a pass over the middle and then threw a fade to Repmann in the left corner of the end zone.
“You kind of see his decision-making and just the way he processes the game, it’s so much more advanced than last year,” Repmann said. “Even when he’s really under pressure, I feel like he’s really able to roll out, make a play happen out of nothing.
“So I feel like that’s something that has been really special from last year to this year.”
On Friday, Drake Mennecke’s numbers paled in comparison to the production of Hersey’s Jake Nawrot, a Kentucky recruit who is ranked the fifth-best quarterback in the nation in the 2027 class by 247Sports and leads a high-powered offense.
Neuqua Valley’s defense allowed 470 total yards as Nawrot completed 17 of 22 passes for 231 yards and four touchdowns. The Huskies (3-0) led 21-0 before Mennecke scampered 31 yards up the middle for a touchdown with 4:01 left in the second quarter.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit,” Ellinghaus said. “We got behind the chains, and we gave up points early and put ourselves in throwing situations.”
The Wildcats played better in the second half. Drake Mennecke connected with Repmann, who had a team-high five receptions for 63 yards, for their touchdown in the third quarter.
“I feel like after our first few drives, we were kind of able to pick up what was going to work and what wasn’t,” Repmann said. “So we kind of just went with what we knew and just trusted our guys and trusted our coaches to make the right calls and the right plays, and that’s how we executed.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.