Lone Tree is feeling the graduation woes this year with the loss of some offensive power.

The Quarterback position is one with a question mark that the Lions will have to see who can step up and play, but it looks as though Nick Viner who completed one pass on one attempt last year would be the pick to start under center. The ground game loses two of their top runners, but does bring back Levi Saterfield who had 461 yards and eight touchdowns. With a new quarterback, comes a new receiving core as well, with the loss of the top three to graduation.

Defensively the Lions bring back some experience despite losing some to graduation, including Alex Yedlik and Matt Wieland who bring back a combined 119 tackles. In the secondary Lone Tree will need to replace all of them, the top five with interceptions are gone, and there are two more that left with them due to graduation, leaving the secondary of the Lone Tree defense open for a young player to step up.

The Lions do bring back a good special teams kicker with Travis Gillham who made 45-52 PAT’s last year, but this year he may need to take over the punting duties as well with the graduation of Andy Dodson.

Lone Tree co-head coach Chad Shield said with their first game against state runner up Mediapolis on Friday, he is more focuses on getting things done on their end first, before worrying about their opponent.

“It’s a tough contest no doubt, first we have to take care of things ourselves, we have some things we need to work on and get better at,” Shield said. “Mediapolis was the runner up last year in 2A and has a program that has been very successful over the last seven or eight years, and we are going to definitely have out hands full and it is going to be a great test for our team as we move forward.”

After Mediapolis Lone Tree will host North Tama on September 6 and WACO on September 13, and then they will hit the road to New London on September 20.

The Lions host Highland for the school rivalry game on September 27, travel to WMU on October 4, host Van Buren October 11 and Danville October 18 and then will finish out the season away at Lisbon on October 25.