G ilbert boys track and field head coach Joel Fran- zen has a secret that he cannot wait to spill to the rest of the squads in central Iowa and across the state. Here goes: his team is stacked. Se- riously, absolutely stacked. Sprints — check and check. Middle distance — check there, too. Distance — uh, remember that cross country team last fall? A lot of those guys are on the track team as well. So, yeah, check. With close to 50 bodies on the roster, Franzen sees the talent on a daily basis. He likes the talent, he likes the depth and, really, he likes everything. “I feel we have a good, well- rounded team,” Franzen said. “As I look, we have athletes ready to compete across the board, from our field events, to our sprinters, to our middle dis- tance, and our distance. And it’s good to have a really solid group of senior leaders.” The Tigers return close to 10 student-athletes who competed at the state meet last spring, and they’ve got plenty more who would like to finish the sea- son on the blue oval later this spring. Let’s start with the sprinters, a
group that has already built on the success it attained a season ago in the indoor season and early part of the outdoor season this spring. State qualifiers in the 4x100-meter relay a season ago, the quartet of Brayden Howard, Paul Marpe, Gabe Fierce, and Will Hawthorne has already broken the school record in the event twice this spring, and it hit the blue stan-
dard to qualify for Drake at the first outdoor meet in Adel. The group has run a best time of 43.34 seconds, which is more than a half-second better than its fastest time in 2024. Of course, Hawthorne on the anchor proved to be one of the fastest sprinters in Class 3A a season ago. The Iowa State University football recruit and
2024 Gatorade Iowa Football Player of the Year reached the state finals in the 100 while get- ting under 11 seconds for the first time. Could he go even faster in his final season? “I could see Will taking another step, and then that 4x100 group has really gelled together,” Franzen said. “All of our sprinters have gotten
26 GAME ON | SPRING 2025
SPRING 2025 | GAME ON 27
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease