RETURNING LEADERS Gilbert Football
Rushing
Name Att Yds YPC TD Will Hawthorne 131 774 5.9 7 Connor Rash* 95 327 3.4 6 Tayshawn Gillen 40 189 4.7 1 Wyatt Pink 31 148 4.8 1 Gabe Fierce 12 91 7.6 0 Blake Bell 6 46 7.7 0 Ethan Wilcox 2 16 8.0 1 Holden Boshart 2 12 6.0 0
Passing
Name
ComAtt Yds. TD
Connor Rash* 43 100 756
9
Receiving
Name Rec Yds YPC TD Will Hawthorne 12 320 26.7 4 Ean Eldred 20 268 13.4 3 Alden Short 4 77 19.3 1 Gabe Fierce 4 55 13.8 1 Wyatt Pink 3 36 12.0 0 Name Tot So TFL Sks Will Hawthorne 63 46 10 4 1 ⁄ 2 Bown Kruse 40 25 7 1 ⁄ 2 4 1 ⁄ 2 Alden Short 31 18 2 1 ⁄ 2 0 Tayshawn Gillen 29 22 12 1 ⁄ 2 8 Braeden Nees 25 1 ⁄ 2 17 3 0 Easton VanCleave 10 5 4 1 ⁄ 2 1 1 ⁄ 2 Blake Bell 7 1 ⁄ 2 5 0 0 Mason Griffin 7 1 ⁄ 2 4 3 1 ⁄ 2 0 Gabe Fierce 5 5 0 0 Connor Rash* 2 2 0 0 Nolan Zehr 2 2 1 0 Ethan Wilcox 2 1 0 0 Owen Mattson 1 1 ⁄ 2 1 0 0 Connor Castro 1 1 ⁄ 2 1 1 0 Jet Berger 1 0 1 ⁄ 2 1 ⁄ 2 Danny Buss 1 1 1 1 Tate Larson 1 1 0 0 Noah Burger 1 ⁄ 2 0 0 0 Kyler Grooters 1 ⁄ 2 0 1 ⁄ 2 1 ⁄ 2 Tackles
Nate Graham, Joe Drzycimski, Jeff South, Jeff Cesler, Graham Lundt, Jake Hanson, Cale Jensen, Randy Sniezek, Jared Gescheidler, Andy Moore, Ron Green, Everett Charlson, Greg Hawthorne, Caleb VanCleave, and Mike Kruse.
the 2024 season, and Gilbert will attempt to knock them down again. The difference this sea- son is it won’t come as a sur- prise to anyone if it happens. Lundt might not to talk a great deal about wins and losses, but the simple truth is the Tigers have the experience and talent to generate quite a bit of suc- cess over the next few months. Will that translate into a trip to the state playoffs, the program’s first in a non-COVID year since 2015? Lundt’s not about to make any promises, or even talk about the potential for that matter.
“I don’t think I’ve mentioned the word playoffs to (the players) and I’m not going to,” he said. “Think about this, we already have less than 100 days of promised football. Pick any football program, they can only promise you three months, which is crazy. After those promised days, we’d really like to add seven more days to that. To do that, we know we have to win more than we lose.” The schedule — non-district games against Dallas Center- Grimes, Carroll, Mason City and Boone, followed by district contests against Des Moines Hoover, Carlisle, Bondurant-
Farrar, Newton and Pella — matches last season’s slate. Sure, each of the foes will look different — some for the better and some for the worse — but so will the Tigers. There could and probably will be a number of close games. Execution will matter. Small de- tails will matter. Exactly how it should be. “We could play in eight one- possession games this year, we really could, and we’re probably not going to win them all,” Lundt said. “But there’s a belief, there’s an expectation, and that’s exciting.”
*Will miss the entire 2024 season due to a knee injury sustained in late February
Gilbert’s advantage is that it will return a number of starters on both sides of the ball, players that have only gotten
16 GAME ON | FALL 2024
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