South Salem with a record-breaking season
Saxons seek top performances while working together as family
It has been a few years since South Salem was atop the Salem-Keizer football world. The Saxons—guided at quarterback by former U of O baseball star and pro player Gabe Matthews, were unbeaten in the fall of 2014 and again in 2015, taking the crown in the old Greater Valley Conference.
After losing one game last season to pass-happy South Medford, the Saxons have found regular season perfection this year, averaging over 50 points per game enroute to a 9-0 regular season record. With Athan Palmateer at the helm, the Saxons had just one “wire-to-wire” close game all season—a 45-44 victory over Sunset of Beaverton.
Even though Athan will be featured prominently in this article—he would be one of the first to argue that South Salem is more than one player. And although interviewing the entire team would to be a logistic nightmare, the idea of finding players who are representative of the squad as a whole seemed workable.
So here are five Saxon players (including Athan) to talk a bit about the team as a whole for 2023. Enjoy the profiles—and remember, they represent the rest of the South Salem team, which has worked as a group all season long.
#50 Hatimu Letisi Sr. 6-2 260 OL/DL
Many of South Salem’s 2023 team display their emotions openly. But the young man who might be the most demonstrable in that department is Hatimu Letisi—a two-way player who has distinguished himself as a defensive end for South.
Hatimu had 66 tackles during the regular season for the Saxons, averaging 8.3 tackles per contest—and third best on the team. But on top of that, Letisi has 14 tackles for loss (TFL) and 9 sacks—best on the squad. He also recovered and returned a fumble 72 yards for a touchdown early in the season.
It is usually quite easy to locate Letisi on the defensive line—just look for the locks of dark hair extending out of the helmet down to the numbers on the back of his South Salem jersey. He also looks like a guy ready to jump six feet in the air on the way to the quarterback or other offensive player with the ball.
The big guy makes no apologies for his energetic manner, saying it’s a role model thing.
“Most of the younger players on the team love to see when the older guys get worked up, so it’s important to keep the energy high and help amp them up.”
Hatimu is a South Sea Islander—hailing from the Empire of Tonga, some 5600 miles from Salem. Letisi says a major part of his culture emphasizes family over everything.
“I will always put my family first,” says the normally smiling young man. And he says right now, his family sees him on the field every day.
“This is one thing that I carry forward with our team, we are all brothers. Most of us grew up together since we were young.”
Hatimu says the team’s connection off the practice field has been a difference maker, as they “break bread” together at meals, gathering for team film sessions, and just hanging out together.
The big defensive end says he developed a love for the game watching his brothers play. He reached a key point in his career when he was brought up to varsity as a freshman, where he spent lots of time watching game video—making him a student of the game. As a senior this season, Letisi says he has learned what keys to look for in order to give him an edge in the trenches.
Hatimu says his teammates would describe him as a leader on the field, someone who knows when to “flip the switch” and get serious and focused for the game upcoming. He and fellow edge rusher Divine Ibe have flipped the switch plenty this season is helping the team limit the opposition to an average of 14.9 points a contest.
Opponents in the playoffs should be on the look-out for Hatimu—one of South Salem’s guided muscles.
#11 Parker Williams Sr. 5-10 175 WR/DB
Parker Williams’s 2023 football season actually began months earlier when he played in June’s 2023 Les Schwab Bowl in McMinnville. Williams—who has been a steady contributor as a South Salem defensive back—was honored as the Defensive Player of the Game during informal ceremonies held on the field at Linfield College. It was a decided honor for a young man with a senior season still ahead of him.
Parker started his season well, recording 27 tackles in the first five games of the season, as well as an interception he turned into a 58 yard pick-six. But suddenly, it all came crashing down.
Williams was in cover for the South defense in the second quarter of the Saxons’ week five contest against West Salem. Parker came up to tackle a receiver—and shortly after the collision, he felt pain in his right knee and stayed down on the turf. He had torn his ACL, MCL and his meniscus—the triple play of knee injuries. His season was over.
But those who know Parker Williams will tell you while the injury was a decided stunner, he wasn’t going just mope on the bench. While watching from the sidelines has been “harder that I could’ve imagined,” Parker says it offered him an opportunity in a different way.
“I am still out giving my everything to the team… I’m always offering advice to players and doing my best to help prepare them,” says number eleven.
“Football is such a big team game, that there’s no time to be selfish.”
In particular, Williams has been coaching up fellow-senior Eli Gabriel—who has filled his spot in the Saxon secondary. Parker is proud of how his successor has played in his sted.
“I have been talking non-stop to Eli…. He has been amazing at taking in information and applyin it,” gushes Parker.
“Eli Gabriel has stepped in and been amazing; the team couldn’t have asked for a better player to come in.”
Does that sound like a selfish teammate? Absolutely not. In fact, what Parker Williams has done is become an extra coach to talk up his teammates—his friends—his football family—when the official coaching staff is taking care of other issues. A decided plus for South Salem.
But to be honest, Parker Williams still feels the sting of being stuck on crutches or in a wheel chair after his recent surgery. He has worked hard like his teammates since grade school. As an admitted “competitive and driven person,” Parker still feels a small ache from the time lost on the field.
Despite his season being done, Williams—predictively—isn’t giving up his dream to play in college.
“This small bump in the road doesn’t change that one bit,” says Parker determinedly.
Williams plans to work out with his longtime friend, North Salem receiver Pierce Walker—who was also having a terrific season when he broke his leg in a road game at Grants Pass. It is hard to bet against them in the months to come.
Parker Williams does a great job of selling himself to others—his coaches included. His size may be smaller than some other college athletes, but he is a decided student of the game who in his own words “…can be the utility player thrown all over (the field) if that’s what I need to be.”
Don’t cry for Parker Williams. He is too busy helping his team win games. A South Salem 2023 football treasure, even out of uniform.
Esteban (Bon-Bon) Mendez Sr. 5-5 160 WR/RB
There always to be a teammate or -mates who are the go-to player on the offensive side of the football. The player you have faith in producing in a tough game situation.
Many South Salem football fans would cast a vote for Esteban Mendez to fill that spot for the Saxons.
At just five feet, five inches tall, “Bon-Bon” as he has been called since grade school—is a weapon that opponents have a difficult time planning for. And he seems to pop-up at just the proper time for the South Salem “O.”
Mendez is part of the dedicated group of seniors who have been meeting faithfully since before summer camp began this summer. It is that dedication that makes South Salem special, according to the wide out.
“I think my teammates always want to win and will do whatever it takes to do so,” says Mendez.
Esteban says his team’s meetings at coaches’ homes to watch game video and other “extra stuff,” and the group’s excellent chemistry—developed since grade school—makes them a formidable opponent each and every week.
Mendez’s love of football goes all the way back to kindergarten. “My family always had it on the TV, and we would just go outside to play football a lot.” From there, the love of the game was developed.
Like others on the South team, Bon-Bon became a real student of the game by watching game video and analyzing the defenses he saw. From there, Mendez worked on identifying defensive alignments, the weak points in those defenses, and how to react as a receiver to evade the defender. The goal was to start his sophomore year. Mendez accomplished that and more.
In fact, he learned to become a possession receiver—someone who could be counted on to make the catch, and somehow gain significant yards more often than not.
Bon-Bon worked along side now-graduated Tini Tinitalli in last year’s receiving corps. Tini set the program record last year for reception yardage. Esteban has blitzed that record this year and should have an astronomical final number of his own before the season comes to an end.
Mendez admits that his small size keeps him motivated in the pursuit of excellence, using his gifts of speed and route running.
“Speed plays a big factor in football and has helped me a lot in getting open,” says Esteban.
“I have (also) worked on route running, getting in and out of breaks, and being able to stop on a dime.”
Anyone who has watched South Salem this year knows that Mendez has used both of his primary tools to make him the team’s premier wideout—with 2346 career yards in receptions at the end of the regular season, along with a team record 25 TD catches and counting.
Despite all the team records and accolades from coaches, Esteban is no Lone Ranger. He is tight with his cadre of receivers, including Eli Johnson, Parker Williams, Jacob Nemecek, and Romyl Luster among others. Bon-Bon says it a decidedly positive relationship.
“We sometimes go out to eat and just hang out with each other a lot at school. As a group, we all love to see each other succeed which I think makes us a really good unit.”
And good the Saxon receiving corps has been—helping to make their quarterback Athan Palmateer—the top passing quarterback in Oregon.
With all that Esteban Mendez has accomplished, there is one last dream he would like to obtain: a place on a college football team, despite his small stature.
“I understand that I get over looked or am not recognized due to my height but I don’t really let that affect me.”
But Mendez’s eye-popping numbers, along with some video ought to make college coaches sit up and take notice. To borrow from a well-worn adage, “"It's not the size of the dog in a fight, it's the size of fight in a dog."
Esteban is a big dog in a small dog’s body. One reason South Salem has been fortunate to have him on the football team. Just load him up with some chicken alfredo, fire up Drake for his Beats headphones, and he will be good.
Eli Johnson Sr. 6-4 210 WR/DL
Having a famous relative can be a mixed blessing. South Salem wide receiver Eli Johnson can probably testify to that. He is the son of Dave Johnson—who won a bronze medal in the decathlon at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Daddy Dave also is a former athletic director at South High, inadvertently putting his son in the spotlight.
But this story isn’t about Dave—as fine an athlete and person as he is. Eli Johnson is the story here—and he has shown the athletic genes are strong in him, with a tall, muscular frame and quick reflexes that have made him one of the Saxon’s “go-to” wide outs this season.
His regular season numbers are solid. Eli has 35 catches for 670 yards (19.1/catch) and includes 7 touchdowns. If Eli isn’t towering high above the opposition for a reception, he is racing past the secondary on a long touchdown (his longest this year is 68 yards).
And Eli is self-assured in his skills—which reflects on the family influence.
“He (dad) has always pushed me, and helped me to be confident in my abilities, and on and off the field—to succeed at a high level.”
And if you ask Number-10 about his athletic abilities, he isn’t shy about sharing.
“I have a height advantage for sure,” he says. “I have the best hands… I can catch throws almost nobody else can catch.”
And Johnson has shown those abilities all season long. About the only throws he doesn’t bring down have been thrown away on purpose.
Eli traces his football interest back to his early days as a third-grade student of the game. And Johnson says the football exploits of his older brother Gabe on the Saxon gridiron were what “sparked the flame for my football career.”
Johnson says his passion helped him to become a serious student of football as a freshman when he had to learn a “whole playbook of plays,” and sparked him to pursue position secrets that make him better at attacking the opposition he faces.
When it comes to playing for South Salem, Eli has high praise for his teammates, saying they are as tight as any squad he has played with.
“Everybody plays together as a family, and I think that it’s really special,” says Johnson.
“It’s really special to have a team as close as ours in high school.”
Eli says his teammates see him as a “playmaker in crunch time.”
“They know when the ball is thrown to me, I’m gonna come down with the ball every time.”
The confidence Eli Johnson has on the football field is also a reflection of the peace he feels playing the game. It’s a good way to approach the stiff competition faced every week, and is an example of the magic the Saxons have as a unit.
Athan Palmateer Sr. 6-2 200 QB
The AIR RAID offense is the foundation of South Salem’s scoring success in recent years. It is a complicated array of plays based mostly on the pass—and requires team members to learn the playbook and schemes for being successful in every aspect of the game—from blocking, to route running, to separation from the defense—and more.
To become an effective football team, the group of players must learn to lean on each other, trust wise, as the season rolls on. At the center of it is the quarterback, who orchestrates it all, under the direction of coaches.
Athan Palmateer is the signal caller. Last spring, he appeared to be an unlikely candidate for the South QB job after having a successful 2022 campaign operating the offense at rival Sprague High—where Athan transferred after concluding that Daschel Smith was the number-one QB for South for the season. His move to Sprague yielded positive results for Athan—who won the starting job, threw for nearly 1100 yards, and helped power Coach Jay Minyard’s Olympian squad to a post season berth—losing in the second round of the Columbia Cup playoff bracket.
Athan says he was expecting to be at Sprague for his senior season, but Minyard resigned as coach to take the athletic director’s job at South Albany. Palmateer was facing the prospect of learning a new offense for a third straight season. After some contemplation, he made the decision to return to South. It is no wonder he has described his football journey as “unique.”
Several teammates voiced pleasure in having Athan back. Many had played with Palmateer for years during youth football. Athan agrees he was also happy to be back, saying he had toiled with most of the players since fifth grade, and they have been close friends since.
Athan says he has loved football “for as long as I can remember.” But he vividly remembers starting to take the game seriously the summer before his freshman year, when he starting training—really training and throwing consistently outside of the team. Says Athan of his decision:
“I realized that to compete at the level I wanted to, it would take a lot of work.”
And work he has this season—with decidedly positive results.
During the regular season, Athan threw for 2862 yards for South Salem. That is roughly equal to 1.6 miles. He has passed for 29 touchdowns on the year—and stands just three TDs away from tying the school record shared by two other signal callers. He has a total of only three interceptions for the season, despite tossing 244 passes. Oh, and a bonus: Athan is the Saxons’ leading rusher with 567 yards, and 11 TDs, while averaging 6.7-yards/carry.
And while all-District football squads won’t be announced until next week, Palmateer has already been honored by SB-Live, the prep sports arm of Sports Illustrated. Athan was named as Oregon 6A’s regular season Offensive Player of the Year. (read the story here.)
If all of this sounds like a lot of pressure, Athan seems a little oblivious.
“I’ve always bet on myself, and I believe that the way I work will allow me to succeed in any situation.”
After leading South Salem to its first unbeaten football season since back-to-back league titles in 2014 and 2015, is sure looks like Number-Nine has covered all his bets so far this year.
The post season awaits the entire group, the entire team. And the first game is far from easy. Tigard High finished last in the Three Rivers League, with a record of 0-5, but is listed at #11 in the OSAA power rankings. Why so high? The Three Rivers League has all six of their teams in the championship bracket, including four in the top ten.
South Salem has taken note, and is preparing for the home contest at Bennett Field.
The Saxons are ready.
Thanks for updating us on Saxons!
I learned years ago that a great passing game does not happen without a great offensive line! Go Saxons !
Another great “up close and personal story”!