After last season, the Indians voted two players as captains. One was senior Joe Zeigler. The other was sophomore quarterback Kaleb Romero.
“It’s a great feeling to know all my best friends and all the kids on the team — because we’re all like family — they’re all looking up to me,” Romero said.
The eight seniors on this year’s team alternate as two groups of four and serve as game captains. But Romero, now a junior, is this team’s leader on the field, off the field and in every competitive moment that involves his teammates.
“When you talk about him as a leader, everything he does he’s competing,” Forrest said. “It doesn’t matter if we’re bowling, if we’re lifting weights, if we’re running 40s, it doesn’t matter what he’s doing he’s going to try to beat you. His competitive nature has rubbed off on the entire team.”
Romero has rushed for 1,382 yards and 22 touchdowns and has passed for 1,572 yards and 16 touchdowns while completing 70 percent of his passes. And no team in Ohio has been more dominating than the Indians. They are the first team in Ohio to achieve a running clock in 11 games as a result of building a lead of 30 or more points in the second half of each game.
“At the beginning of the year we thought we were going to be a solid team, but no one ever thought we were going to be doing what we’ve done this year,” Romero said.
The second-seeded Indians go for win No. 12 at 7 p.m. Saturday against No. 3 Delphos Jefferson at Sidney High School. If the Indians win, they might get a second crack at a Midwest Athletic Conference power. They would play the winner of West Liberty-Salem and top-seeded Marion Local of the MAC in the regional final. Marion Local won the Division VII title last year.
Last year the Indians lost an opening-round game to MAC team Minster in controversial fashion. Minster rolled from there to the Division VI championship but dropped to Division VII this year. That loss is a motivating bad memory, but it also boosted the Indians’ confidence.
“Last year’s playoff game showed this team that when they play to their highest level that they’re a pretty good group,” Forrest said.
The Indians have been dominant on both sides of the ball playing on average six players both ways, sometimes a little more. Romero doubles as a safety and linebacker and rarely leaves the field. Other players who might play at least one and a half ways Saturday are Philip Cook, David Harvey, Dylan Hartley, Colton McMannis, Wade Smiddy and Bobby Welch.
“We just go out there and fight our butts off,” Romero said, “so we can have another week with our family, our brothers.”
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