KARNS CITY — Eight wins and a playoff victory sounds pretty good for a high school football season.

Not good enough if you're Karns City.

“We're not satisfied with that,” Gremlins senior linebacker Nathan Waltman said. “That's not Karns City football. Karns City football is about winning the whole thing.”

Coach Joe Sherwin won't argue with that.

“The goal of this program every season is to win the District 9 championship,” he said.

Karns City has a good base to start that quest with this season.

Though the Gremlins lost a lot of production with the graduation of quarterback Anthony Kamenski and running back Hunter Rowe, they return seven starters on offense and eight on defense.

Kamenski rushed for more than 1,000 yards and threw for 700. He will be replaced at quarterback by either senior Brayden Christie or sophomore Eric Booher.

“Brayden was a quarterback coming through the system,” Sherwin said. “We moved him to receiver since Anthony was in place at quarterback. Now that Anthony's gone, Brayden's back at quarterback. He's an excellent runner and has versatile skills.

“Eric throws a tight spiral and has been looking good. I'd say it's neck and neck right now. I don't like to play two quartebvacks, so we'll see what happens.”

Wide receivers Kaden Scherer and Gage Cowoski are back. Scherer led the team with 17 catches for 495 yards last year and also ran for 191 yards on just 20 carries.

Fullback Luke Garing rushed for 571 yards and scored 11 touchdowns a year ago. Tight end Waltman, who missed part of the season, caught only four passes.

“We will never get away from running the football,” Sherwin said. “But we do have to get better in the passing game. We need to be more consistent there.”

Waltman believes he can help in that regard.

“We've got some plays in there where I can catch some balls and get some yards,” he said. “I'm hoping I can contribute more that way.”

Also figuring to help the passing game is sophomore wideout Micah Rupp, coming off a stellar freshman basketball season.

“He's a tremendous athlete and gives us another weapon out there,” Sherwin said.

Three starting linemen are back in center Josh Griffiths, guard Colton Craig and tackle Mason Turner. Aaron Taylor will be another guard with Matt Griffiths and Austin Brown expected to see time at tackle.

The Gremlins' top three running backs — along with Garing — right now are Jayce Anderson, Zach Blair and Cole Coon. Anderson ran for 166 yards in spot duty last season.

“I can see us having four, five or six guys carrying the football every game,” Sherwin said.

Defensively, Karns City will continue to play its 44. Returning up front are tackle Craig and ends Matt Griffiths and Brown. Garing is back at outside linebacker, Waltman and Turner at inside linebacker.

Waltman led the Gremlins with 93 tackles last year while Garing had 86. Craig had 46 tackles and five quarterback sacks.

“I'm excited about what this defense is capable of doing for us,” Sherwin said.

Scherer and Cowoski return at defensive back. Scherer had 61 tackles and a team-leading five interceptions. Rupp will join the secondary at a safety spot.

Other defensive contributors figure to be Cole Hilliard, Taylor and Mason McNany at end, Coon at inside linebacker. Blair at outside linebacker along with Owen Collwell and Booher.

“We got hurt too much by big plays in the passing game last year,” Sherwin said. “That's the one part of our defense we need to shore up and I'm confident that will happen.”

Collwell returns as the place-kicker with Christie handling the punting chores.

“There's a lot of talent on this team,” Waltman said. “It';s just a matter of putting it all together.”