The Columbus Wildcats are opening up a new football season by hosting Mediapolis tonight. Columbus is in the middle of the program’s best stretch of football in over 30 years, as a team without a winning season in the 21st century has strung together back-to-back winning campaigns and won 14 of the 19 games they’ve played since 2022.

A big part of that success is returning senior Riley Kaalberg, who has 118-and-a-half total tackles and 13.5 tackles for loss over the last two seasons but also became a big-play threat on offense last year, rushing for over 940 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Tyson Kaalberg is also back after leading the Wildcats with 52.5 tackles and six interceptions in 2023, while fellow junior Elliot Wessley looks to build on his varsity debut that included 45 stops, five tackles for loss, four picks and two fumble recoveries.

But, like most good teams, Columbus head coach Dave Lekwa tells KCII Sports that his squad’s strength is in the trenches.

“That’s no surprise to anybody that we’ve played against in the last year [that] we’ve got some big players, particularly on that line,” Lekwa says. “A lot of [those] rushing yards that we’ve been able to get the past couple years is due directly to those linemen.”

The Class A Wildcats will take on a 2A Mediapolis team that defeated them 33-7 last fall and went on to a second straight season with eight wins.

Senior Noah Schmidgall is the leading returning rusher for the Bulldogs and averaged over eight yards per carry last year. Kickoff from Columbus Junction is set for 7 o’clock this evening.