Olathe East football finishes the regular season with miraculous improvement. Last year, the Hawks ended the season with a 2-6 regular season record and ended 2-7 after the playoffs. A two-season schedule rotation is in place in Olathe and the surrounding districts. That means the schedule is the same as last year, and will change next season. Last year OE lost to Olathe North, Lawrence Free State, Lawrence High, Olathe Northwest, Olathe West, Gardener Edgerton, and Blue Valley Northwest. Their only wins were Shawnee Mission East and Shawnee Mission Northwest. This year while having the same schedule OE had a 5 game win streak, only being defeated by Olathe North and Lawrence Free State. East’s most significant accomplishment this season was beating the undefeated Blazers. The Hawks dethroned Gardener from their number-one spot in the state like it was nothing, ending the game 21-7.
Senior, and captain, Brett Carroll has been working hard this season. His leadership has helped the team advance to where they are now. Caroll won offensive player of the week for week 8 against SMNW. While being on both sides of the line, the Hawks have generated more than 1,000 rushing yards from Carroll’s contribution. This being his second year as captain, he says, “It is a lot of responsibility, but it feels good being the guy people look up to.” “Things have changed this year”, Carroll Says, “In the last years’ people weren’t as focused on the season because we have had a lot of things go wrong. 2 years ago, anything that could have gone wrong did, we lost our drive and our focus spiraled out of control. But we had a realization this year, that we have so many seniors on the team, many of whom will never suit up again. That really put into perspective how hard we need to work to be the team I know we can be.” Carroll also goes on to say, “When I was a Sophomore we had the worst captains of any team I have ever been a part of. We had 2 captains who would go party after the games. We’d lose a game and they’d go party. They wouldn’t show up to Saturday film, so I kinda just had to take over the role of being a guy people look towards, and get in front of the team and speak to them, telling them what we do and what we have to do. We have fought so hard this year, and we have shown it through our improvement in our record and rankings.”
The Hawks are currently ranked 4th in the Sunflower League, and 19th in the state. They will continue to show what they have worked so hard to achieve as they take on Wyandotte High School in the first round of playoffs on October 26th.
