Meet the Railers 2019 Football Team

[September 09, 2019] 

The 2019 Railers Football Team was introduced to fans on Friday night at Handlin Field along with a host of other LCHS athletes. Student-Athletes from Golf, Soccer, Cross Country, Volleyball, Cheer and Dance all made their way across the track to be recognized by fans in the bleachers.

But the O.N.E. main attraction of the evening was the football scrimmage. O.N.E. stands for Only Now Exists and is this year's motto.

This year's team has been years in the making as 19 seniors, many of whom have played together since third grade, make up much of the Varsity Squad. There is a lot of excitement surrounding the team this year, along with size and experience. The Railers look to be fun to watch, and there is no doubt after watching the scrimmage, these guys are hungry to compete.

Matt Silkowski, who is beginning his fourth season at the helm, was pleased after Friday night's scrimmage and offered some thoughts.

"I'm real happy with what we saw tonight," said Silkowski. "Obviously, it's always tough but it was good to get out here and get some routine things going. We were able to show our fans a little bit of what they can expect. We didn't show a whole lot tonight. We kind of had a plan on what we wanted to do tonight, and that's what we did. We showed what we wanted to. What you'll see next Friday will be a lot different than what you saw today. We treated it like a practice. There's some things we wanted to work on so we took that opportunity tonight. We have a plan with everything we do and tonight was very scripted on what we wanted to accomplish. But we are happy with what we saw tonight. Some guys made some good plays. Some lower level guys stepped up against Varsity competition, which was good to see. We knew they had the ability to do it so it was nice to see it tonight. We're excited for the season and real happy with how things worked out tonight. We're going to start getting ready for game week."

MEET THE RAILERS

Head Coach: Matt Silkowski.

Assistants: Jacob Harnacke, Chuck McFadden, John Mammen, Greg Kindle, Rich Johnson, Erich Lieser, Matt Vlachovich and Jake Berglin.

Football Manager: Baylee Young.

SENIORS

Front row: J.T. Guzzardo, Austin Daniels, Kameron Whiteman, Jayden Pollice, Devin Gibbens, Jayden Graham, Brandon Sweitzer and Marty Maas.

Back row: Noah Butler, Isaiah Huynh, Justin Horchem, Thomas Morris, Jake Benninger, Dreyden Pozsgai, Alex Bogdanic, T.J. Merriman, Tyler Vance and Austin Prater

Not pictured: Noah Funk.

JUNIORS

Front row: JR Lynn, Jared Merriman, Eldon Barger and Jared Helton.

Back row: Brayden Rohlfs, Ryan Kennedy, Tanner Strampp and Hunter White.

SOPHOMORES

Front row: Kadin Osland, Zach Menzel and Justin Powell.

Back row: Evan Maynard, Elijah Pollice, Brody Whiteman, Tony Gandolfi and Nathan Ladage.

RAILER CHEERLEADERS

Cheer Coach: Anna Maxwell.

Cheerleaders: Peyton Bennett, Autumn Dunovsky, Jadyn Fish, Taylor Gandolfi, Claire Hill, Ashleigh Koeching, Olivia Morrow, Bailee Pineda, Ryleigh Schmidt, Elizabeth Stewart, Brooklyn Summers, Adrienne Tiffany, Chloe Vinyard and Addy Yeazle.

RAILETTES

Dance Coach: Brande Montgomery.

Railettes: Sommer Bohannon, Emma Boyd, Madeline Cook, Bayleigh Gillum, Julia Guzzardo, Mia Hullinger, Makayla Koehne, Rachel Morrow, Lydia Roland, Emma Stoltzenburg and Faith Turley.

Abbi Montgomery – manager.

Game week is here now. The Railers kick off the season on Friday night at Handlin Field versus Bartonville Limestone at 7 p.m.

Go Railers!

[Teena Lowery]