Indians look to carry momentum into 2024
By Jacob Meikel
The Central football program has exceeded expectations each of the last two seasons, and the next step will be to add playoff wins to its resume in 2024.
From 2018 to 2021, the program only won four football games. Since then, they’ve tallied five wins in 2022 and seven wins in 2023. The only thing missing is the playoff victories to go along with those records. Central has fallen in the first round of districts each of the last two seasons, each of them by one score. Senior Gabe Fields has been a big part of the Central football team’s turnaround, and now the goal is to take the success of the regular season into the postseason.
“The last couple years, we try to set the foundation and now we’re trying to carry it over to actually getting past the playoffs,” Fields said. The past couple of years, we’ve come up short just by little things.”
Central enters the year as a younger group according to senior Boston Stobaugh. Finding the replacement for pieces like Caleb Aguilar and Brock Williamson, who both graduated, will be just a few of the roles the Indians will need to fill heading into the year. Despite the youthfulness of the team as they try to maintain success heading into 2024, Stobaugh is confident in the group.
“We did graduate a good senior class, but I think we’re showing that we can prove to be as good,” Stobaugh said.
If wins are in the cards for Central once again this year, it’ll have to be accomplished with a new head coach at the helm. Sheldon Farrell was hired as the Indians 31st head coach in program history last December. Farrell has familiarity with the players as he spent the past five seasons as the offensive coordinator, so being able to keep the standard high is something he won’t have a problem asking of his players, particularly his seniors.
“I’ve told them all summer long, I’m never going to lower my expectations for you. You’re going to come up to me,” Farrell said. “Last year we played with Oak Park, we played with Park Hill, and so they just got that confidence. I think I just also rely on my great staff that I have to keep pushing the kids and continuing to get them to buy in.”
The Indians will get their first taste of real action this Friday in the St. Joseph High School Football Jamboree. That will give them a chance to figure out what they may need to polish up on with their season opener against Winnetonka just on the horizon on Aug. 30.
