Top-ranked Spartans will face No. 2 Don Bosco Thursday at UNI-Dome for 8-Man State Championship
By Drew Herron - NT Sports Editor / Nov. 20, 2013
CEDAR FALLS - Needless to say, there has been a lot of build up to Thursday’s State Championship game.
It is after all, the pinnacle of 8-Man Football in Iowa, and we are promised that something will get settled somehow on the UNI-Dome Turf in a long-awaited match-up of No. 1 vs. No. 2.
For the top-ranked Spartans, the spark to right a wrong caught on a year ago this week after Exira-EHK made its first ever trip to Cedar Falls and dropped its semifinal match to eventual champion Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn. A week later in the State Championship game, MMC handed Don Bosco a similar fate, seizing the 2012 crown for the Eagles with a perfect 14-0 run through the 8-Man game.
In 2013, there will be a familiar kind of different when it comes to who will hoist the championship banner, as MMC bowed out of the tournament in the quarterfinals. What’s left is two hungry teams loaded with seasoned veteran players, guys who have risen to every occasion on every week to combine to go 25-0 and score 1,385 points. And just as importantly…they’ve both been here before.
“When you get to a state championship game, obviously the best two teams are there,” Exira-EHK head coach Tom Petersen said this week. “It’s going to be big challenge for our kids, but it’s one that I expect we will be up for.”
The intrigue of putting perhaps the state’s best offense on the field with the best defense could trace as far back as August, when camps came together. All four of the teams that reached the dome last year returned more than they lost. On the east side of the state, Don Bosco has been throttling all opposition, scoring 60 points or better half a dozen times, and just once (a 36-0 win over Rockford), the Dons failed to hang half a hundred points on the board.
In the west, Exira-EHK has developed a reputation as a two-way team that prides itself on its defense, an effort that shows on paper with its state-best 10.9 points allowed per game. The Spartans defense is physical, fast, and smart…and they hit hard.
“We spend so much time on our defense, maybe to a fault,” coach Petersen says. “But (against Newell-Fonda) the defense carried out their assignments the entire game, and we were continually in good position to make plays.
“Now, we are going to have to make sure we are in the right places at the right time, because we are going up against the best quarterback in the state.”
Don Bosco senior quarterback Jake Hogan scored six touchdowns and racked up 256 yards rushing in last Thursday’s win over AC, pushing his season total to 2,459 yards on the ground and 1,434 yards passing with 68 total TDs on the season.
“We are going up against a special individual, Jake Hogan is the real deal,” coach Petersen says.
“With him, we NEED to get more than one person to the ball. Our defensive front is going to have to play its best game if the year and they are going to have to be extremely physical when the opportunity is there. I’ve always felt that you are able to slow speed down if he can get enough hits on him. But that’s just it, we need to make sure we play physical when we can, and the big plays…we will have to take them with a grain of salt.”
Don Bosco has a better scoring average this year at 59 PPG, though the Spartans are not far behind at 52. Moreover, EEHK’s defense is allowing about half (10.42) as many points as does DB (19.31), and the Spartans defense might provide the wild card the team needs to fend this contest in its favor.
Spartans coaches say they can hope to expect a shutout for every game, though Petersen admits this week that Don Bosco isn’t really a team you can reasonably expect to shutdown.
“It’s pretty obvious when you see a team scoring 59 points per game, that is probably a team that is going to get big plays,” he says. “But with our guys, we talk about short term memory, regardless of what happens, we need to bounce back and make plays. Chances are, we will make some mistakes, but we can’t let those (fester).”
The Spartans continue to be led offensively by junior QB Drew Peppers, who has run for 2,043 yards, passed for 3,904, and scored 57 offensive touchdowns this year. EEHK also maintains a stable of backs equally effective at moving the football in seniors Trey Sander and Nick Peppers.
Sander is knocking on the door of 1,000 yards this season (915 on 99 carries) despite missing almost 12 quarters of the season, and Nick Peppers leads the Spartans in yards-per-touch at 9.8 (390 yards on 40 attempts) in limited action as well.
Now the Spartans are healthy and eager to take this next and final step for a remarkable football season for Exira-EHK. Win or lose Thursday, the Spartans have broken new ground for the program in a new era of 8-Man Football.
“It’s been a long journey, but one this group has definitely earned,” coach Petersen says.
“I felt confident that if our kids did everything to the best of their capability, then I figured we could reach this position. Obviously, to get here, you’ve got to have a lot of things go your way. But this is something (our players) have worked extremely hard for…they’ve put in the time and effort needed to get to this position. This opportunity is something they have earned.”
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