When I came to Iola in February to cover Allen County athletics, one of the first names I was told to look out for was Isaac Badders.
At the time, Badders was a just a seventh-grader finishing up his basketball season for the Ponies.
It is safe to say I was not expecting such a young athlete to be among the players that people were most eager to tell me about, but in the time I have seen Badders represent Iola Middle School on the field and court, he has clearly impressed.
This summer, I began hearing excitement from Iola High School coaches in addition to fans. On back-to-back days during the summer, when I saw Mustang coaches on a far less regular basis than I do now, two Mustang coaches in different sports brought up Badders in casual conversation without me even mentioning his name.
I fully understand the hype surrounding the eighth-grader. On the way to leading his Ponies to an undefeated regular season, Badders has utterly dominated the competition this season in the Pioneer League. In many cases it’s a surprise that if he has the ball he doesn’t end up in the end zone.
So while Badders certainly gets his due, the reasons for the Ponies’ success the past two seasons extends far beyond his singular exploits. If the Mustangs are to reach the level of success that a potential Badders and Tayton Driskel pairing in the backfield could yield, then they will be relying on far more than just Badders from this class.
The current eighth-graders also feature running back Dylon Reiter, who though currently lacks the electricity in his runs that Driskel and Badders produce, holds great promise because he is extremely similar to their physical running style. And as Reiter continues to get bigger he may very well become a scary complement to that explosive backfield at either fullback or tight end.
The Mustangs will more than likely roll into next season with a senior under center in Evan Sigg, but Bradyn Cole has shown that he can play well in the run-heavy system that the Ponies employ and has displayed athleticism that will enable him to be a consistent face that Mustang fans will surely see somewhere on the field.
It is in the trenches where these Ponies offer the most star potential outside of Badders. Guiseppe Mangrella, Logan Brown, Dillon Bycroft and company have given opposing offensive lines headaches throughout their middle school careers and they have opened huge holes all season for Badders, Reiter and Cole to run through.
The development of a very good offensive line will be a key getting what figures to be a run-first team to being a dominate offensive unit in the mold of a Santa Fe Trail or Wellsville and even if these linemen aren’t a focal point of the 2017 team, they will be hugely important over the next four years.
There are plenty of others from this group that will be keys over the next four seasons with players like Kole Rogers, C.J. Shields, Drake Sellman and Henry Wicoff being big-time contributors for the Ponies and having potential to do that for the Mustangs at some point as well.
With Badders as the ringleader and possessing a great attitude to quickly become a leader at the high school level, it is certainly fair to have huge expectations for the future of Iola football, but just know that while Badders is the easiest to single out and put those expectations on, it is not that simple and football hardly ever comes down to just one player’s ability to be great.
The Ponies have accomplished great things throughout the past two years and now if the Mustangs are to do the same in the future, fans should understand that this is far more that just the Isaac Badders show.
Only time can truly tell how special this group is.
