Class 6A football opponent preview: Westfield

Almost three decades have passed, but Jake Gilbert vividly remembers settling into his seat inside the Hoosier Dome to watch the 1992 Class 2A championship football game.

What Gilbert, a high school senior at the time, knew about one of the participants, Westfield, could’ve been placed on a pinhead with room left over.

Growing up on the westside of Indianapolis, Gilbert, an all-state defensive end for Ben Davis, didn’t fully comprehend that there were happenings, whether football-related or not, beyond his asphalt comfort zone of I-465.

Oh, but there were. And there are.

Westfield, which might as well have been the lower regions of Neptune to the teenaged version of Gilbert, now flourishes under his leadership.

Gilbert has gradually built one of Indiana’s more-respected prep football programs over the past 11 seasons, previously leading three Shamrock squads to Lucas Oil Stadium. His 2016 team captured the 5A championship.

It remains the school’s lone football title, though a second could come this evening.

For a second consecutive year, Gilbert has Westfield back in the 6A title contest. Ranked second, the Rocks (12-1) look to avenge the 38-14 drubbing they absorbed at the hands of No. 1 and unbeaten Center Grove (13-0) in last year’s finale.

“I certainly think it’s harder to make it back to a state final than to make it the first time,” Gilbert said. “The other part is you get everyone’s best shot. But I’ve still got a chip on my shoulder, and we’re still the underdog climbing trying to get higher.”

Similar to the opponent they’ll face, the Shamrocks feature the kind of senior talent that coaches in the system began tracking years ago.

Defensive end Popeye Williams, a Louisville commit, has 79 tackles and six quarterback sacks; free safety Micah Hauser is the unique talent who is not only Westfield’s second-leading tackler (116), but leads the Shamrocks’ offense in rushing (1,215 yards) and scoring (23 touchdowns).

Senior quarterback Maximus Webster, who’ll play at Ball State, has been impressively efficient with 16 touchdowns and only two interceptions sprinkled into his 2,123 passing yards. Junior linebackers Tyler Dikos and Charlie Dager have compiled 128 and 96 tackles, respectively, while junior cornerback Dillon Thieneman (99 tackles) has been offered a scholarship by Purdue.

“We have more highly-touted seniors (than the 2020 squad). A lot of players returning,” Gilbert said. “Last year’s group had a special resolve. This team, it’s kind of been expected. We’ve been waiting on this group for a long time.

“The original goal for me was, can we make it there (finals) by 2021? Long story short, we got it figured out.”

Despite their differences geographically and in terms of conference affiliation, similarities exist between Westfield and the first 11 seasons of Center Grove football under longtime coach Eric Moore from 1999 to 2009.

Westfield is 84-47 under Gilbert with four trips to a championship game and the aforementioned title; in Moore’s first 11 years, the Trojans were 99-38 with a 5A runner-up finish in 2000 and the program’s first view from the mountaintop eight years later.

Gilbert’s admiration for the job Moore, his assistants and the Center Grove community as a whole have done is obvious.

“Our blueprint has been extremely similar to that of Center Grove. Some of that is intentional, and some of it is not,” Gilbert said. “When I took this job, I just remember being shocked at what Center Grove was accomplishing, and was like, ‘How did that guy do that?’

“I think we’re both doing a lot of things right.”