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Will Lone Tree football merge with Bears?
by Gregory Norfleet · Sports · May 21, 2025
Out of the Lions Den and into the Bear Den?
Lone Tree Community School District expressed an interest in merging with West Branch’s football program this fall.
If so, the West Branch football team will jump from being one of the smallest schools to the largest Class 2A school.
After losing its head football coach, Joe Donovan, Lone Tree Community School District reached out to West Branch earlier this spring, asking if it would accept its players for the next two seasons.
The offer: West Branch gets a bigger pool of talent, Lone Tree gets time to rebuild its program, and the Iowa High School Athletic Association gets time to decide if West Branch will stay in 2A.
The arrangement may include Lone Tree sending another assistant coach and a few cheerleaders.
While the West Branch administration and Board of Education like the idea, Lone Tree Superintendent Tyler Hotz said his school board continues to weigh the advantages and disadvantages.
He said a May 14 workshop raised clarifying questions, but did not give him any clear idea how they might vote at their May 21 board meeting.
West Branch Activities Director Jake Stenberg called a possible merger a “fresh start for both teams.”
“We’ll take it,” he said.
If approved, the Lions may bus 12 to 17 players to West Branch to compete alongside the Bears for the first cooperative agreement in the history of West Branch football.
Bear quarterback Nolan Staker, who will be a senior next season, likes the idea of Lone Tree possibly joining West Branch.
“We need all the guys we can get,” he said. “We’re trying to go to the Dome.”
With the team losing top linemen like Tate Frantz and Cole Crosthwaite, “we have big shoes to fill.”
“If Lone Tree can bring those guys to us, we need all that talent,” Staker said. “I think it’s great!”
He said West Branch would like to provide the Lion players with that opportunity.
“I hope Lone Tree chooses to play with us,” the quarterback said. “We would not have any issues with them mixing with us. We’d be accepting, and, if it helps us win games, great!”
Stenberg said Lone Tree sending an assistant coach would give its players a “familiar face” on the sidelines.
Hotz said the team looked at the likely numbers for the 2025 roster and “they were not what we expected.”
So, Lone Tree first reached out to schools that share a border, like Iowa City, West Liberty, Mid-Prairie, Highland, and Columbus. West Branch’s boundaries do not touch Lone Tree’s, but it is the next closest, only separated by a few miles to the north.
“We made multiple districts aware of our situation,” Hotz said.
West Branch Head Coach Matt Hughes said a May 13 meeting with Lone Tree players “went great!”
He said he talked to the Lion athletes about West Branch’s “culture, environment, and tradition.”
“And to get them excited to play football,” the coach said.
Hughes said the players “asked a few great questions” but mostly listened.
“I could tell they were interested,” he said. “And they were respectful. They seem like great kids.”
Stenberg said a two-year agreement would line up with the state’s biennial school reorganization, when the IHSAA refigures enrollment figures to determine classifications.
“If we keep growing like we are and enrollment keeps going up, then we risk going into 3A,” the AD said.
Hotz said he understands the concern.
“Districts are not always eager to share if it bumps them up a class,” the superintendent said.
The IHSAA in February reorganized the football classifications, moving the Bears up to 2A for the first time since 1997. Due to counting children from low-income families as three-fifths of a student, the IHSAA moved nine teams below West Branch, pushing it up to 2A.
Under the new system, the state determined West Branch had 192.46 students in ninth through 11th grades, placing it 47th out of 48 2A schools. That same system determined Lone Tree had 69.81 students, or 49th among 69 eight-man teams.
Of the 369 high schools that offer a football program, only 19 are smaller than Lone Tree.
The IHSAA requires that schools with co-op sports agreements combine enrollments to determine classification, so the lead school — in this case, West Branch — would effectively have a pool of 262.27 students.
With 0.81 student more than West Burlington (261.46 students), West Branch would move to the top spot in Class 2A.
At West Branch’s May 12 school board meeting, Superintendent Marty Jimmerson said Lone Tree reached out before spring break.
“They do not have the numbers and they do not have a head coach,” he said. “They looked at a bunch of different schools, and they felt we were the best fit.”
Jimmerson said the administration wanted to make sure the Bears would not move up to Class 3A with the merger.
“If this happens, and right now we’re planning on this happening … like anything, communities don’t like to give up things, but when they only have 13 or 14 kids and a majority of them are underclassmen … we look at this as a win,” he said. “They might actually bring additional games to our younger kids.”
This year, the superintendent said, football will have “curtain raisers” — when the freshman-sophomore team plays before the varsity team on Fridays.
“With an additional seven, eight, or nine kids, we could actually do some JV games on Monday nights,” Jimmerson said. “So there are more opportunities for kids to play.”
Stenberg notes that West Branch sends athletes to Iowa City for cross country, bowling, tennis, and swimming.
“We would be speaking out of both sides of our mouth if we did not accept others when we could,” he said.
Hughes noted that when he coached football at Clear Creek-Amana, the Clippers welcomed half a dozen players from Iowa Mennonite School, now known as Hillcrest Academy.
“We want to give them a great experience and teach them some life lessons to help them become successful human beings,” he said. “The more the merrier!”
Hughes hopes players from both West Branch and Lone Tree would learn how to welcome each other and make new friends.
“They will be part of the team from top to bottom,” the coach said.
If numbers hold steady, Lone Tree’s players would make up 20 to 25 percent of the Bears’ rosters.
It takes nearly 25 minutes to travel between the schools, so West Branch may push 4 p.m. practices back to 4:10 p.m.
Jimmerson said the school would also have to consider changing summer lift times.
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