Somewhere in central Iowa this summer, as the sun starts to dip in the background, a young girl will stripe a drive down the middle of the fairway. She’ll turn to her dad, smile, and say, “I hit that just like Eden.”

In a backyard not far away at about the same time, a little boy will loudly set the scene to the hundreds of invisible fans in attendance — Connor Rash lines up the penalty kick for the state championship! — before he sprints toward the soccer ball and blasts it into the back of the net. It will set off a one-boy celebration that lasts until his mom calls him in for supper.

The next morning, in the hours before the heat gets so intense that it’s hard to breathe, a group of young girls will set out on a run around town. Their mission: To be just like Clare. And Sophia. And Keira. And Sarah.

It’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? In just one season, a blip in time that barely lasted two months, this generation of Gilbert student-athletes not only etched their names into school lore forever, but they also inspired the next generation of kids to be just like them.

And “just like them” is pretty special.

Two team state championships. An individual state championship. A relay state championship. A team state runner-up. A pair of third-place team finishes at state. Multiple state medals. Seven all-tournament team members.

And the victories … So. Many. Victories.

If you’re lucky — and we all were — it’s a season that occurs once in a lifetime. Different teams in different sports all focused on one goal: Being the best of the best. These kids dedicated themselves to it. Probably obsessed over it. And instead of shying away from the seemingly impossible expectations, they embraced them. They ran right into the light and grabbed what they felt was rightfully theirs.

You did that, kids.

You. Did. That.

And you should be extremely proud of yourselves. We all are.

That girls’ 4×800-meter relay — Clare Stahr, Sophia Bleich, Keira Andersen, and Sarah Feddersen — lit the fuse in mid-May when it broke the school record and won a Class 3A title by 10 seconds at the state track and field meet. Feddersen won a bronze medal in the 800, and added another medal in the 4×400 relay. Andersen wasn’t far behind, in fifth, in that same two-tour individual circuit of the blue oval. And both broke the school record.

Other girls — names like Claire Grandgenett, Rebecca Schrader, and Laurel Mizerak — played their roles as well. And William Wadsley put the Gilbert boys’ program in the spotlight with a pair of medal-winning runs in the mile and two-mile.

Cut to three days later and the boys’ golf team bagged another state trophy. The top of the leaderboard alluded the team for the first time since 2019, but third-place is nothing to disregard. For a program that sets its standards in the clouds, another Raccoon River Conference crown and high finish at state should be and is applauded. And with five of the six players back next season, including sixth-place finisher Zach Wilson, it’s not far-fetched to think the Tigers will be a state title contender again in 2024.

And then we get to the girls golfers, arguably the most dominant spring team in any sport, and we’re not just talking about here at Gilbert. We’re talking about the state.

Seriously.

An unbeaten spring for the team and an unbeaten spring for junior Eden Lohrbach. It just doesn’t get better than that. The bow was the program’s first state championship at the 3A meet in Cedar Falls only three days after the boys’ tournament wrapped up. The Lady Tigers were the wire-to-wire leaders, winning by 19 strokes against a field that never stood a chance.

Now here’s the scary part — that team comes back almost fully intact in 2024. Eden Lohrbach, the University of Nebraska recruit, will go in search of her third individual state gold medal. And it’s not far-fetched to say her biggest competition could come from her own household — twin sisters Ava and Ella Lohrbach. Macy Underwood, Josie Dukes, and Haley Loonan, they’ll all be back too.

The rest of the state just bellowed a collective YIKES!

Head coach Grant Walker is a lucky man.

And while all of this was going on, our Esports team was quietly going about its own scintillating spring playing Mario Kart. It took an unbeaten regular season into the state tournament and finished third. For a second-year program under head coach Troy Staudt, I’d say that’s a win no matter how you look at it.

Which brings us to soccer and five days that are hard to top if you’re a Gilbert Tiger.

Two teams. Two state finalists. Only one other school in the state — behemoth Johnston — could also make that claim.

But it wasn’t just the success, it was how the success was achieved. None of us will ever forget the first-half hat trick by Tyler Holtan in the quarterfinals, or the “are you kidding me?!” goal with 4 seconds left in the semifinal win over Sioux City Heelan. How about Connor Rash’s championship hat trick, capped by the walk-off PK that brought the thunder roaring down from the pro-Gilbert crowd as the Tiger boys celebrated their first-ever state soccer title? From beginning to end, it’s a movie script.

Girls, you captivated our minds and hearts equally on your way to a state runner-up finish. Shutouts in the opening two rounds, highlighted by Elle O’Brien streaking down the middle of the pitch as she chased down a perfect pass from Abby Patel to give the team a monumental double-overtime win over reigning state champion Des Moines Christian in the semifinal round.

And can we all give Sydney Lynch a standing ovation? A state golf champion, a state finalist and all-tournament team soccer player, and a two-week stretch that will still make her smile when she tells her grandkids all about it someday.

If somebody told you these stories, you wouldn’t believe them had you not seen them. 

But you did. We all did.

All of those little kids watched in awe too. You better believe they were paying attention. And you are who they now emulate.

Isn’t that the greatest win of all?

Lady Tigers Win First-Ever State Golf Title, Eden Lohrbach The Individual Champion Again

Perfection on a golf course, it’s just not possible, not unless someone out there has the ability to post 18 consecutive aces on a scorecard. You’d have better odds at winning the lottery in six consecutive weeks while dealing with the fact that you’ve also been struck by lightning three times during that span.

So, yeah, forget about perfection.

On second thought …

There is such a thing as a perfect golf season. The Gilbert girls’ team just achieved it. Junior phenom Eden Lohrbach did too. And it was a beautiful thing to watch.

Exorcising the demons of 2022 — more on that later — with two solid days of golf, our girls’ squad hoisted the program’s first-ever state championship trophy late Friday afternoon at Pheasant Ridge Golf Course in Cedar Falls.

Honestly, it wasn’t all that close.

Led by junior Eden Lohrbach’s second individual state title in three years, the Tigers led by seven strokes after Thursday’s opening 18 holes and then extended the final margin to 19 strokes by the time the Class 3A 36-hole tournament wrapped up on Friday. Rounds of 332-321 (653 total) on the 5,379-yard, par-72 layout easily dispatched runner-up Dubuque Wahlert (341-331-672) and third-place finisher Clear Lake (339-337-676).

At no time on Friday were our girls in danger of relinquishing the lead. The margin reached double digits early on when Josie Dukes and Macy Underwood started off strong, and it continued to steadily grow throughout the day as all of the golfers toured the course.

As for perfection, well, how about these numbers …

•There were some duplicates, but 86 teams attempted to beat the Tigers this spring, whether it was a dual, a triangular, a quad, or a tournament. All 86 failed.

•If you want to count the two-day state tournament as two separate events, then the number of foes reached 104. Again,104 failed.

•As for Eden Lohrbach, the math is even more ridiculous. She faced challenges from somewhere between 500 and 600 golfers in April and May. And she beat them all.

This was all expected, of course, considering Eden’s talent and the remainder of the team comprised of either talented freshmen with a familiar last name or cagey veterans. But I’d argue that makes the feat even more impressive. Each time our girls stuck a tee in the ground, there was a bull’s-eye on their backs. And it didn’t matter one bit.

There was a bit of redemption too as the girls subtly celebrated their achievement near the clubhouse on Friday. The scars of the Devastation Of 2022 are still visible, but hopefully now they’ll fade. In case you don’t remember (sorry girls), the Tigers took a 12-stroke lead into Day 2 of the 2022 state tournament at River Valley Golf Course in Adel, only to see their nerves and an unfortunate pin placement that made national headlines seize that title from their clutches and hand it to Clear Lake by two strokes.

The girls spent the 2023 season using that disappointment as fuel. And on the eve of last week’s state tournament, head coach Grant Walker and his girls burned those memories — quite literally — when they set the 2022 scorecard ablaze. The card may have turned to ashes, but the fire burning inside of the players only grew hotter as the week progressed.

Eden’s two-day total of 143 included a 2-under 70 in Round 1 and a 1-over 73 in Round 2 to give her a five-stroke win over runner-up Rebecca DeLong (73-75-148) of Clear Lake. Also the 2021 state champion and 2022 state runner-up, Eden plays a game most of us are unfamiliar with. Her high, naturally fading drive finds the fairway on virtually every hole. Her irons are crisp, and her wedge game is a notch or 12 above pretty much every golfer in the state.

And here’s a little bit of knowledge for you — had her putter been hot or even lukewarm on Friday, that 73 would have been more like 65 or 66. Over her last 15 holes, she burned the edges on a plethora of birdie putts, but her ball striking was so superior that it didn’t matter.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Eden’s game is her demeanor. Whether she penciled in a birdie or a bogey, she stayed laser-focused. She doesn’t throw clubs. She doesn’t grumble. And she’s always gracious to her playing partners. In other words, she’s an absolute joy to watch and a tremendous role model for her teammates and future golfers who hope to one day be just like Eden.

The University of Nebraska is getting a good one. A really good one. But not before she returns to Gilbert next year to attempt to win a third state crown. And is there anyone out there who doesn’t believe it will happen?

The other girls played their parts as well.

On Day 1, Ella Lohrbach fired an 83, and twin sister Ava Lohrbach added an 89 along with Macy’s 90.

On Day 2, Ava went pin-seeking with an 81, and Macy matched her to shave nine strokes off her opening-round score. Josie took five shots off her Day 1 total with an 86.

Don’t sleep on what Sydney Lynch did either. Her schedule late in the week consisted of the opening round of state Thursday morning, followed by a quick drive back to Gilbert to help the Tigers’ soccer team reached the 1A state tournament. Sydney and her dad, Rob, turned right back around and made it to Cedar Falls late Thursday night so Sydney would be ready for Friday’s second round.

I’m exhausted just typing that.

So, what does the 2024 landscape look like for our girls’ team? With only Lynch exiting due to graduation, and with Haley Loonan in the fold, there’s no doubt the Tigers will be among the favorites to win the state championship again. That’s probably being too modest. Truth serum time — they’ll be the favorites. That’s a lock.

I can’t wait to follow it all again.

As I sat in the air-conditioned (that was a plus) media center inside Drake Stadium going through photos this evening, a vision suddenly entered my mind. It was a look into the future. Let me try to paint you a picture.

It’s 50 years from now and four women in their mid- to late-60s convene near the front door of Gilbert High School. First they hug with tears in their eyes, and then they laugh as they chatter on and on about their lives. And then they hug some more before locking hands and walking side-by-side through the doors.

They head directly to the trophy case and quickly find what they came together for. It’s a picture of four bubbly teenagers on a sun-speckled Iowa afternoon, all of whom have a gleam in their eyes and a smile that reflects pure joy.

They just stare at that photo. And they remember how it was at that moment they became Gilbert legends.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, those four women are Clare Stahr, Sophia Bleich, Keira Andersen, and Sarah Feddersen — Gilbert’s latest collection of talent to bring a state title to our halls. They accomplished that feat earlier today when they lived up to their billing as Class 3A favorites in the girls’ 4×800-meter relay on the opening day of the 2023 Iowa Coed State Track and Field Championships.

They didn’t just win a state championship. They left everyone else in their wake. Their winning time of 9:29.11 broke their own school record by more than seven seconds, and it left no one else in the class with a chance. Solon, thought to be their closest competitor leading up to the day, finished second … a full 10 seconds behind our girls.

As Jonathan Moxon so eloquently tells his teammates in Varsity Blues, that’s heroic.

But what made the moment, the race, and the day so special wasn’t just the gold medals the girls wore around their necks out of the stadium. It was how they captured those gold medals. Simply put, they did it by running for “we” instead of “me.”

In my nearly 23 years as a sports writer, I watched many, many … many state-meet relays. Not all of the time, but often enough title-winning teams had one or two superstars and two or three others who had one mission: get the stick to the stud.

That’s not how it went for our girls. Because, honestly, we’ve got four superstars, unique in their own ways. They were able to put it all together because they worked for it. They dreamed about it. They pushed, and nurtured, and celebrated each other. And when the spotlight was at full brightness shining right in their eyes, they never blinked. Not once.

As for the race itself, it was incredibly nuanced. It really was worth the price of admission.

Clare Stahr was handed the toughest task on the lead-off leg, but to see the look in her eyes … the girl is a bulldog. For 400 meters, every stride was a fight as she attempted to wedge herself out of a large pack, and as she made the turn on her second lap, she was 10th. Over her final 400 meters, she showed why lead-off runners don’t come any better. She took off, passing one girl after another, and by the time she handed the baton to Sophia Bleich, she had pushed Gilbert into the top four.

Seemingly always smiling, Sophia put together the leg that was the turning point in the race. Calmly, methodically, she inched closer to the leaders, and as she reached the scoreboard with 200 meters remaining, Sophia said see ya. She came to the front stretch neck and neck with the leaders, and was the first to hand off the baton. Just like that, Gilbert was in the lead.

For good.

Next up was Keira Andersen, a freshman with talent for days. She could have been nervous. Many in her shoes would have been. She could have tightened up. Many in her shoes would have. But with a clear track in front of her, Keira simply went for a run like she was back home in Tiger Stadium. Her stride was even, her pace was perfection. And as the seconds ticked, the gap widened and widened … and widened some more.

That set the stage for Sarah Feddersen on the anchor, a sophomore who just a few months ago had no idea how good of a runner she was (news flash: she’s incredibly good) when she decided to give track a try for the first time. I said it right when she grabbed the baton from Keira and headed on her way: Game Over. Nobody was going to catch her. And nobody came close.

This was four ultra-talented runners coming together with a common goal. It took work. It took sacrifice. Ask them now and I’m pretty sure they’d quickly tell you it was all worth it.

Congratulations, girls. You’re state champions, a moniker no one can ever take from you.

You got exactly what you deserved.

New National Honor Society Members Introduced, Senior Awards Distributed

Faith. Family. Football.

Those are the three pillars that legendary Iowa high school football coach Ed Thomas lived by prior to his untimely and tragic passing in 2009. As a way to honor the legendary Aplington-Parkersburg educator and coach, each spring the Iowa Football Coaches Association selects one individual from each class as the recipient of the Ed Thomas Award, and the winners are chosen based on their commitment to character and integrity.

In the state of Iowa, there is no greater honor bestowed upon a student-athlete. All-conference and all-state accolades are tremendous achievements. But the Ed Thomas Award takes it to another level.

And now, the honor has come to the halls of Gilbert High School.

Iowa Football Coaches Association member Ken Winkler made a stop at Gilbert Wednesday night during Senior Awards Night to surprise soon-to-be GHS graduate Ben Melody with the Ed Thomas Award for Class 3A.

The IFCA couldn’t have chosen a better recipient than Ben, who demonstrates empathy and compassion on a daily basis as he makes his way through our halls. He consistently puts others first, and his work in bringing Moving Forward to fruition will have a lasting impact on our district long after he’s a student.

“I was absolutely pumped to hear Ben was receiving the Ed Thomas Award,” Gilbert Head Football Coach Graham Lundt, who nominated Ben for the award, said. “Ben has such a positive influence on our football program, school, and community. His legacy of what he has done off the field will be felt forever.

“Ben is an inspiration to not only his peers, but the adults around him. In my coaching career, I cannot think of a more deserving student-athlete than Ben.

Gilbert Activities Director Ian Smith echoed Coach Lundt’s thoughts.

“Getting to know Ben over the last year is one of the greatest honors of my education career,” Smith said. “He’s a top-notch individual and the impact he’s made on the Gilbert school district will be felt for years to come.

“Winning this award is extremely fitting because of the young man that Ben is, and I’d like to thank Coach Graham Lundt for nominating Ben for this great honor.”

The Ed Thomas Award was just one piece of what was an incredible evening inside the GHS auditorium. The evening began with 29 new members being inducted into the National Honor Society, and it was followed by Senior Awards Night, where accolades and scholarships were handed out to a large number of our 2023 graduates.

The list of new National Honor Society members, as well as all of the award and scholarship winners, are listed below.

Congratulations to Ben on his prestigious award. Congratulations to our newest National Honor Society members. Congratulations to all of our seniors on their achievements.

It was a great night for our students and our school district!

2023 National Honor Society — New Members

•Olivia Blumhagen
•Sadie Breyfogle
•Averie Bruner
•Abby Deal
•Carly Dolan
•Adalyn Gauck
•Will Hawthorne
•Ella Henningsen
•Taryn Hicks
•Zoey Jones
•Mia Kautman
•Nathan Lee
•Mayson McQueeney
•Kiera Miler
•Kilee Miller
•Gretchen Mizerak
•Laurel Mizerak
•Vivian Nally
•Elle O’Brien
•Abby Patel
•Taylor Puck
•Kaylin Richards
•Anna Saltzman
•Mollie Schnormeier
•Elizabeth Smith
•Andrew Soupir
•Reese Wilson
•Carter Winter
•Kylie Zeigler

Senior Awards Night Winners

•Ed Thomas Award — Ben Melody.

•Bernie Saggau Award — Owen Kautman.

•IGHSAU Iowa Girl Award — Abby Greder.

•HAMO Foundation Scholarship — Cody Wirth, Nolan Weber, Maria Saltzman, Lauren Nissen, Owen Kautman, Ava Henningsen, Alex Harswick, Emma Nelson, Brooklynn Nees, Connor Clark.

•GEA Future Teacher Scholarship — Addison Pink, Jessica Stoker.

•Athletic Booster Scholarships — Owen Kautman, Lauren Nissen, Cason Eggert, Julianne Lundvall.

•Key Cooperative Scholarship — Abigail Dies, Cody Wirth.

•Grandma Jensen Scholarship — Judith Ruiz-Ortiz.

•Story Medical Foundation — Brooklynn Nees, Madeline Roche.

•Beta Tau Delta Sorority — Brooklynn Nees, Madeline Roche, Brock Christensen.

•Marge Bly Scholarship — Madeline Roche, Owen Kautman.

•VL Schwenk Scholarship — Zach Holtan.

•Clare E Shepard Scholarship — Brooklynn Nees.

•Fine Arts Booster Scholarship — David Hinderaker, Jessica Stoker, Lane Maxson, Seera Smadi, Anna Tallman.

•DAR Good Citizen Award — Ben Melody.

•Award from Central Iowa Realtors — Alex Ruba.

•Chris Covell Scholarship — Jessica Stoker.

•Bob Jensen Scholarship — Ben Melody.

•US Army Scholarship — Storm Cichy.

•Ames Noon Kiwanis Club Scholarship — Madeline Roche, Owen Kautman.

•DMACC Scholarships — Maggie Fink, Madelyn Sabus, Ozzy Sents.

•Bethany Life Scholarship — Madelyn Sabus.

•FFA Alumni Scholarship — Abby Dies, Julianne Lundvall, Wilson Lofstedt, Makayla Britcher.

•Bill Ludwig Lions Club Scholarship — Madeline Roche, Maria Saltzman.

•GRIP Mentoring — Lauren Nissen, Jackson Stensland, Ben Melody, Aidan Wimmer, Brock Christensen, Jake Danilson, Carson Ragaller, Erik Soenksen, Owen Kautman, Brooklynn Nees, Owen Wirth, Addison Pink.

•Dr. James McKean Memorial Scholarship — Eden Gildehaus.

•League of Women Voters — Maria Saltzman, Madeline Roche.

•Class Clown Award — Josh Huang.

•Cory Keith Patterson Award — Hank Johnson.

•Lindsay Ellingson Memorial Scholarship — Owen Kautman, Madeline Roche, Johnna Rotto.

•Pro Nails Scholarship — Madeline Roche, Lauren Nissen.

•Geil Family Scholarship — Lauren Nissen, Madeline Roche.