The start of the 2021 season is here for the Lone Tree football team, a week earlier than initially planned. The Lions will meet the Midland Eagles tonight in a week 0, eight-man contest. August 20th was initially supposed to be a scrimmage date for Lone Tree, but one of their district opponents, Tri-County, opted to join a sharing agreement with Oskaloosa and not field a team of their own this season, leaving the Lions with need for another game due to a bye now on September 17th.

An argument can be made though that if there is any team that would be ready to handle a change in the schedule and earlier start to the season it would be the veterans from Lone Tree. The Lions graduated just three seniors from last year’s team that went 4-4. Alex Viner, Levi Sotzen and Will Hotz have all moved on, though all three played important roles with Viner posting a team best 860 yards and 16 touchdowns on 97 carries, Hotz leading the Lion defense a season ago with 70.5 tackles, including 38 solo and Sotzen accounting for a pair of touchdowns offensively and 26 stops on defense. The experience for the Lions returns with quarterback Cade Shield. The senior was 76 of 148 through the air during his junior season for 977 yards, 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. His favorite target through the air is also back with Cade Patterson pulling down 37 catches for 511 yards and seven scores last year as a junior. Defensively, the Lions bring back five of their top six tacklers led by Matthew Hemsted with 47.5 stops last year. On defense, Patterson forced six turnovers a season ago, including five interceptions. Lone Tree will have to fill in the backfield equation as they lost 246 carries 1,437 yards and 28 touchdowns from last year’s team to graduation.

Midland was 4-4 a season ago, graduating 10 seniors from a year ago. While they return their leading rusher Cayden Miller and his 133 carries 769 yards and 10 touchdowns from last year, along with leading receiver Jamisen Dodge with his 12 catches 233 yards and five touchdowns, they lost quarterback Carson Hunter who was 29 of 79 for 436 yards six touchdowns and five interceptions. Defensively, the Eagles also graduated their leading tackler Iziek Soper who posted 62 tackles, including 47 solo, 14 for loss and eight sacks a year ago. This week, Lone Tree head coach Aaron Bohr talked about his team’s preparation for the 2021 season. “We had a lot of guys who were excited to be hitting for the first time this year when we put on the pads. I think some of them have been waiting the full nine months just to do that. I’m really excited about the start of the season. We have been very productive in practice. We have gotten a lot of our things in. I think we’ll be ready for week 0. Midland is a team that we have a lot of respect for. Whoever is lining up for them and where they are, we know we are going to have a fight on our hands for four quarters.  We know that the first game out, things aren’t going to be perfect, but, we want to make sure our guys are playing hard, they are in the right spots, know what they are doing, and fighting for four quarters like we said we would.”

These teams have met four times previous, every year from 2016 through 2019 with the Eagles winning the last three including a 44-32 victory in 2019. Lone Tree’s only victory in the series was a 70-62 win in 2016. Action between the Lions and Eagles gets underway tonight at 7p.m. at Lone Tree High School.