High School Football Previews: Newton Railers

NEWTON, Kan. (KSNW) — Our next high school football preview ahead of the regular season is the Newton Railers.

The Railers have had it rough for the last decade, not finishing with a record above .500 once during that span. In the past two seasons, Newton has finished with 3-6 records, but with new head coach Taylor Counts, things are looking up.

Counts spent the past couple of seasons as the defensive coordinator at Andover High before taking over for Greg Slade at Newton.

“It’s been a win-the-day, everyday thing,” explained Counts. “You know, we got to go outwork everybody today, fellas, let’s go. You know, whether that be conditioning, weight room stuff, we’re out here practicing. So we’ve been going fast. You know, we got them up at 5 a.m. every day this week, and they’re, you know, some parents were like, What are we gonna what we’re going to do? We’re going to see who wants to play some football and get out here. So they’ve been shown up at 4:30 every morning. We get the lights on here. It’s been nice and cool outside. We’ve been having a lot of fun flying around.”

The players are excited about the new coaching staff. They hope to be the group that will lay the groundwork for a successful football program for years to come.

“For our senior class, there’s not many of us, but we’re really drilling into younger guys,” explained senior quarterback Niko Ramos. “I mean, this is the earliest we’ve ever gotten up for practice. The most we’ve worked in the summer, the hours we’ve worked. I mean, we’re really putting all of our effort into it as a team.”

“I think that we’re putting in a lot more effort,” mentioned senior linebacker Eli Kirtley. “We’re paying a lot more attention to detail. We’re making sure that we’re doing things right. And if we don’t do it right, we’re going to redo them. We’re not going to just be lazy with it.”

The players we spoke with discussed the keys to success in their final year of wearing black and gold.

“Just working as a team,” added senior linebacker Jesse Stanley, “We need to be all 11 guys playing together as one.”

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