2025 Outlook

Coach: Tim Hamilton (3rd season)

Career Record: 3-15

Conference: Vermilion Valley

Last Playoff: Class 1A First Round, 2022

Best Playoff: Class 1A State Champs, 2003

2024 record: 0-9 (0-9)

Upperclassmen are few and far between for Iroquois West this season. The Raiders were relatively young last season as well, but in 2025 have just four seniors and four juniors on the team with 22 underclassmen rounding out the roster. These veterans will help set the foundation this season, but there will be plenty of opportunities for the freshmen and sophomores on the roster to build up varsity playing time.

But head coach Tim Hamilton, who is heading into his third season as head coach at Iroquois West, said he has liked what he has seen out of his small-but-dedicated pool of players.

“The kids that we’ve got are giving great effort,” Hamilton said. “We’re pretty strong at our positions, but we just can’t afford for anybody to get hurt. We had about four freshmen that played last year at the varsity level, so we’re still going to be young but we’ve got some experience.”

Luckily for the Raiders, several of those returning upperclassmen will be at key positions. Both of the team’s top two rushers, Christian Gaytan and Julian Melgoza, will be back as seniors, giving the offense a couple of known commodities to lean on.

Gaytan ran for 201 yards and a touchdown last season while Melgoza was second on the team with 145 yards on the ground. They each ranked in the top three on the team in both receptions and receiving yards last season as well. They should be assets in the passing game again for returning quarterback Aayden Miller, who as a freshman last season was the most productive of the handful of players to pass the ball for the Raiders. He led the team 433 passing yards and four touchdowns through the air.

Listed at 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Miller is “pretty doggone good for a sophomore” according to Hamilton, who expects his young signal-caller to take a step forward in his second season. Serving as key targets for Miller are receivers senior Wyatt Breen and junior Aaron Songer. Breen was second on the team with both 10 receptions and 119 receiving yards last season and caught a team-high four touchdowns.

Kobie Hendershot will be a big absence for the Raiders on the offensive line, and also on defense where he led the team in total tackles as a senior last season. But there are a number of younger players in the trenches that have already seen plenty of playing time. Hamilton said junior Drew Talbert has emerged as a leader on the line, with sophomores Anthony Alcantar and Noah Schrove also shaping up to contribute.

Any experience that could be gained this offseason will be big for Iroquois West, a program not far removed from back-to-back playoff trips in 2021 and 2022.