{"id":117050,"date":"2014-10-22T15:04:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T21:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kellen-gatzkes-star-rising\/"},"modified":"2014-10-22T15:04:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T21:04:55","slug":"kellen-gatzkes-star-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kellen-gatzkes-star-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Kellen Gatzke’s star rising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kellen
Kellen Gatzke<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

This season, Dolores High School senior Kellen Gatzke has established himself as one of the top players in the area.<\/p>\n

In addition to opening holes as an offensive lineman, Gatzke has made 139 tackles and recovered three fumbles from his middle linebacker position, and he leads Colorado\u2019s 1A class in tackles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been really fun playing on both sides of the ball,\u201d said Gatzke. \u201cI\u2019ve been making a lot of tackles and trying to get my name out there to colleges.\u201d<\/p>\n

An all-conference defensive end last season, Gatzke had never played linebacker before this season. Challenged by Bears head coach Chris Trusler to step into the position and be in on every tackle, Gatzke responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe linebacker position has a lot more action,\u201d said the senior, who also handles kicking and punting duties for the Bears. \u201cI\u2019ve had to be more aggressive this year, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gatzke also has been influential away from the gridiron as a mentor for younger teammates. Gatzke, who carries a 4.0 GPA and scored a 29 on the ACT, can often be found tutoring teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the kids look up to (Kellen),\u201d said Dolores head coach Chris Trusler. \u201cHe\u2019s a leader on and off the field. He has really impressed us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gatzke has attracted interest from several local colleges and hopes to sign on to play college football in the near future. A multisport athlete, Gatzke will wrestle this winter and play baseball in the spring.<\/p>\n

He hopes to attend Colorado School of Mines and study petroleum engineering. In the meantime, the three-sport athlete is hoping to that his final week as a high school player will be a memorable one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider all of these guys to be my brothers,\u201d said Gatzke. \u201cI love football, and I love sports in (Dolores). I wouldn\u2019t want to go to school anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores senior hopes to play college football<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6362],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-sports","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117050"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}