Princeville loaded and highly motivated

By NICK VLAHOS
For The Weekly Post

PRINCEVILLE – Noah Geiger has been reporting about Princeville sports for a while. This football season, he and his Princes teammates hope to provide plenty of headlines.

A running back and linebacker, Geiger is one of about a dozen Princeville seniors returning from a 7-3 team that advanced to the first round of the Class 1A state playoffs. That 60-30 home loss to Stockton was a sour ending to a sweet 7-3 season.

“If you hear me get mad today, you might hear me yell about Stockton,” Princeville Coach Jon Carruthers said before a recent practice. “It definitely wasn’t a great showing by us. It really left our seniors with a bad taste in their mouth. Our seniors now, I think it made them hungry.”

Said Geiger: “That’s the big motivation this year. We all know how it ended last year. We just don’t want that to happen again.”

With seven returning starters on each side of the football and with other experienced players on the roster, Princeville figures to be in prime position to avoid that problem. Geiger figures to be a key player and chronicler.

Geiger is the sports reporter for 326 News, a Princeville School District internet-based weekly news program. Students work in front of and behind the camera.

Other football players who work on 326 News are senior receiver-defensive back Kaden Blunier, junior lineman Ryan Butterfield and senior lineman Owen Harmon. Geiger’s segment is called “Royal Rap-Up.” Geiger spent last year and this past summer as a mass-communications intern at school.
“I didn’t know I’d like that kind of stuff until I actually did it,” said Geiger, who isn’t sure if he’ll pursue a media career after high school. “Maybe somewhere, something I’ve learned in there, I can use that for my future.”

The immediate future for Princeville football is promising. The Princes join Annawan-Wethersfield and Rushville-Industry among the LincolnLand Conference small-division 2025 favorites. Carruthers appears to relish the expectations, although he understands things won’t be easy.

“It’s not like we’re going to come in with a lot of inexperience on that first night,” said Carruthers, whose team opens the season Friday night at Tom Bruna Field against Havana. “We’ll have inexperience at quarterback, but definitely with everyone else around, that should make that easier.”
The new starting quarterback is to be senior Kaiden Sarnes, who is atop a three-player competition for the position, according to Carruthers. Sarnes is to succeed Jake Williams, who was selected as the league’s offensive player of the year in 2024.

Sarnes also is to remain on defense at linebacker, where he was a first-team all-conference pick last year. So were fellow returnees Brady Day, a senior defensive back; Hunter Johnson, a senior wide receiver; and Collin Lowery, a senior unanimous pick on defensive and offensive lines.

Lowery teamed this summer with Johnson, one of his best friends, to form an informal window-washing business in Princeville. Lowery seems to have other sorts of cleaning in mind this fall.
“I think I can do more,” he said. “This year, I feel we have more skilled players, players who know the game of football. We just have all the pieces together to make a good football team this year.”
Certainly, some of the Princeville players have what it takes to form an all-nickname team.

According to Carruthers, senior running back-linebacker Eli Christianson is known as “the Terminator” and is poised for a breakout season. At 300 pounds, senior Wyatt “Big Giff” Giffin is expected to join Lowery and Harmon, among others, as part of a stout defensive line.

The Princes’ 2024 defensive backfield and receiving corps – Day, Johnson and classmate Jett Benningfield – also returns. All of it might be almost an embarrassment of riches for the coach of a team that represents a school of fewer than 200 students.

“It’s a good feeling to have,” Carruthers said. “A lot of times, you get people who graduate so many seniors they’re the only ones that played. We’re not in that boat this year.”

Geiger would like to put that in writing – or on video, at least.
“We want people to remember us; not just another class that was supposed to be good,” he said.