2024 Raider Football Season starts Friday

The old saying: “what a difference a day makes . . .” could be convert to “what a difference a year makes . . .” for the L-N Raider Football Team.

Both the schedule and the roster has change quite a bit for 2024. That’s not all bad, but could be interesting.

• Roster: 22 young men reported for duty this year. Not a lot different than in recent years. However, the makeup of the team did change. The 2023 roster was senior heavy and that contributed to the 2023 record of 7-3.

2024 has four seniors and four juniors on the squad, followed by eight sophomores and six freshmen.

A lot of experience was lost when last year’s senior class exited the school, but that doesn’t mean the team is leaderless. Coach Blevins played numerous players last year and most returning players got a good taste of playing the game in either a varsity game or in J V games.

An interesting thing at this point of the season is just which players step up to fill what roles.

The Raiders have had a pretty good history of fielding a ‘stout’ group. 2024 is no different. Of the squad of 22, eight players are listed as being over 200 pounds. Another five are over 175 pounds. Hopefully that will be an asset. A newcomer to the Raider team this season is sophomore, Wyatt Frey, a 205 pound sophomore.

The 2024 roster: (name followed by weight)

Seniors: Aiden Zikmund, 150; Cody Brockman 155; Riley Cannaday 235; Carson Vaughn 270.

Juniors: Caden Culbertson 185; Nathan Pofahl 225; Nathan Stokes 180, Kole Thompson 250.

Sophomores: Wyatt Frey 205; Ace Wulf 205; Jace Hoelting 155; Jack Williams 215; Grayhm Beck 180; Brandt McLaughlin 195; Caleb Griffis 205; Gus Harrison 175.

Freshmen: Colton Menke 165; Kahlen Johnson 135; Brody Buescher 130; Cooper Heikkinen 195; Jasper Elledge 145; Monty Hajny 155.

• Schedule: The eight-game schedule has only two teams the Raiders played in 2023. The other six teams are not all “new-comers” to the Raiders, but were not on the schedule last year

Howells-Dodge and Wilcox-Hildreth both won nine games last year and played late in the playoffs. Wilcox-Hildreth moves up to Class D-2 from playing six-man football in 2023. Half of the teams had winning seasons last year and half did not.

All teams on the schedule are Class D-2 teams.

The 2024 schedule:

Aug. 30: at Howells-Dodge; 6 p.m. Game played in Howells

Sept. 6: at Blue Hill

Sept. 13: Wilcox-Hildreth

Sept. 20: at BDS

Sept. 27: Deshler

Oct. 4: Nebraska Lutheran

Oct. 11: at High Plains

Oct. 18: Giltner

Brian Blevins is the head coach for the Raiders and assistant coaches listed are: Jerad Niederklein, Preston Hild, Decker Brown, Nolan Kawata, Josh Himmelberg, Dale Endorf. Media specialist is Will Dougherty. Student managers are: Parker Ostdiek, Joel Hoelting, Caleb Stokes, Cam Wehrman, Trip Ostdiek, Cade Peters Dillon Laughlin.