ANAMOSA— Giddiness. Frustration. Excitement. Disappointment.

The range of emotions for the Anamosa football team and their fans went through covered the spectrum in 2007, but through it all, first-year coach Matt Malausky had his mission statement
accomplished. Airing out the football is what he wanted and wow did the Raiders ever get that done in a 1-8 campaign on the gridiron.

“We did some good things on the football field this year, but in the end, our overall record isn’t where we wanted or hoped it would have been,” said Malausky. “All season long we just couldn’t seem to find any consistency with our offense and defense. On nights where our offense played well, our defense struggled. On nights when our defense played well, our offense struggled. It was like that all year long and was pretty frustrating because we knew we were good enough and showed signs we had the game to win, but just couldn’t put it all together at the same time and in the same game.”

Malausky opened up the aerial offense like never before seen in school history as his club tallied 2,182 passing yards overall.

The total team passing yards is a school record as well as wide receiver Colten Kelly’s 63 receptions and receiving 1,155 yards.
“Colten is just a play-maker with a whole lot of talent,” said Malausky of his class 3A third-team all-state star. “He just wants the football in his hands and made big plays for us all season long.”

Also added to the Raider five-wide offense this season were Skyler Miell, Tucker Vondracek, Brady Vaughn and Kyle Gerber.

“Skyler hadn’t been out for football in a while and showed he has a real knack for the game and Tucker played three different receiver positions for us and did an awesome job of adjusting,” said Malausky. ““Brady was a great leader for us who did everything we asked of him to help his teammates. Kyle worked his way into the line-up later in the season and showed he has great hands and will be a force on the team next year.”

OLIN— Things didn’t come easy for the Olin football team during the 2007 fall campaign, but through it all, the smallest school in the state of Iowa to play 11-man football kept battling and worked through the tough times showing a desire and never quit attitude through an 0-9 season.

“We obviously didn’t plan on being a winless football team this season, but I was proud the way the kids kept working and truly did give their all-out effort all the time,” said first-year Lion football coach Bill Cummings. “We made some changes this year and after an initial rough start, the kids embraced what we were trying to do and everyone worked together to try to win.”

The Lions started the season with a primarily running offense as Mason Smith led a solid ground game with 555 yards and four touchdowns.

“We didn’t completely abandon the pass though,” said Cummings.
“We worked that into the offense when we needed it and had some success there too.”

Quarterbacks Kevin Kistler and Dan Inglis combined to pass for an impressive 927 yards and four scores as the Olin passing game grew and grew as the season went along.

“That was one of the things I was most proud of was the way we got better and better with regards to throwing the football,” said Cummings. “I thought our receivers really took some major strides forward as well making some big catches and giving our offense a big lift.”

The key to the Lion season however, was consistency.

“The one constant for us this season was our inconsistency,” said Cummings. “We would take two steps forward then after that take three steps back. It was frustrating watching our defense make two great stops then on third and long, the other team’s offense would come up with a big play time and again.”

After a 35-7 loss in the season-opener against GMG-Garwin, Olin battled a tough Midland team to the wire in the annual Jones County clash with the Eagles.

WYOMING—You name it, the Midland football team did it in 2007, and did it well guiding the club to a 2-7 mark overall and 2-6 mark in the nine-team class A district 6 chase.

You wanted offense? The Eagles impressed all season long with their punishing ground game led by Jed Holland. The running game tallied 1,485 yards overall with Holland accounting for 903 of them and nine touchdowns.

But Midland wasn’t just a one-dimensional club.

The Eagles, when needed, were also very proficient at putting the football in the air as quarterback Cody Dirks, who battled through injury, also had a big fall. Dirks threw for 973 yards and completed 60-of-147 passes with five scores.

“I think the key to it all though was our offensive line finally got comfortable with what we were asking them to do and our backs were healthy,” said Eagle football coach Josh Bentley, who continues to drive the Midland program upward. “We also had a quarterback grow a lot, which in the end allowed us to be more balanced. We are happy we have him coming back.”

The Eagles will lose the services of six talented seniors in Lucas Meyer, Spencer Bowen, Holland, Ryan Dunne, Codey Current and Eric Slouha.

“Jed was a four-year starter and is one of those rare kids who don’t come around very often,” said Bentley of Holland who also led the defense with a whopping 121 tackles. “He was a mainstay for us at linebacker and a quiet leader who gave all he had each and every game.”

Meyer led the Eagle receiving corps making 24 catches for 259 yards.

“He played a lot bigger than he looks who did what we asked of him all year,” said Bentley. “He made play after play and was also one of our top cover guys on defense.”

Dunne averaged a whopping 26.5 yards every time he caught the football, which was 19 times for an amazing 503 yards.

“Wow did he make some plays this year,” said Bentley. “He was a great asset to our offense at tight end and on defense helped play the corner and had a bunch of big plays there as well.”

Bowen tallied 55 tackles defensively and also snared seven passes while rushing the football seven times for another 38 yards.

“Spencer is a tough kid,” said Bentley. “He played the last three quarters of his last game with a broken hand. That’s tough!”

Corrent added another strong runner to the offense while also making 90 tackles defensively.

“Where do you start when talking about Codey,” said Bentley. “He did all our dirty work. He did the blocking on offense, and without him we don’t have the running success we did. He also gave up his body on defense at linebacker and just made plays.”

Slouha recorded one tackle for the Eagles this past season.

“I have a bunch of respect for this young man,” said Bentley. “He was out all four years and the only year he saw significant playing time was this year at center and he did a good job for us.”

While Midland loses much with their talented senior class, plenty of talent does still return for the club.

“I think we are heading in the right direction, but we still need to get stronger as a whole,” said Bentley. “We will be implementing a more demanding off-season workout schedule this year and I hope that will pay off next year too. I also feel we have learned a lot over the last three years from our departing seniors who will be tough to replace. The thing going for us now is this group of up-coming seniors have won at least one game every year they have been in high school.”

Ian Cronkelton and Shannon Stecklein, two of the Eagles’ tackle leaders this past fall, will be back along with Dirks as leaders for the 2008 club.

“We still need to believe we can win each and every week,” said Bentley. “Yes, I think we’re heading in the right direction and we have some good youth coming up through the younger grades. With what we return next year, we will have high expectations. we have made strides with respect to wins, effort and so on, but we won’t settle for just this. We have a plan and we are on course to achieve that and we don’t want to lose focus of that and where we’re going.”