From the Capital-Journal:
The matchups just scream something other than “Class 3A regional.”
Something bigger seems more fitting for showdowns between the best of the Mid-East and Big Seven Leagues on Saturday. The heavyweight feel seems more like a title bout or at worst a state semifinal.
No. 1 and 10-0 Silver Lake vs. No. 5 and 10-0 Nemaha Central. No. 4 and 9-1 Rossville vs. 9-1 Sabetha.
As Class 3A battles go, especially so early in the playoffs, it doesn’t get any better.
“That’s just the cards we’re dealt in 3A,” said Silver Lake coach C.J. Hamilton, fresh off notching career win No. 400 on Tuesday night. “That’s the way it rolls. That’s two pretty good matchups right next to each other.”
Rather than lament their luck (unluck) of the draw, all four programs have attacked Saturday’s monumental clashes head-on.
Or as Rossville coach Derick Hammes put it, “You’ve got to play it at some point. The east side of the bracket is pretty deep and the deeper the bracket, the earlier you run into these types of games. It should be two pretty good matchups.”
For Rossville the feeling for Saturday’s 6 p.m. showdown at Sabetha isn’t all that different from the one the Bulldawgs had in the regional round each of the last two seasons on their way to two straight Class 3A state championships. In 2014, Rossville fought off Centralia after beating the Panthers previously during the regular season for their only two losses.
Last year, it was a 61-20 win over a previously undefeated Nemaha Central team in a game where the Bulldawgs led just 21-12 at halftime.
“These regional games for us the past two seasons have been pretty big football games,” Hammes said. “I hope we can count on being experienced in these situations. But it’s really going to boil down to the matchup itself and how both teams perform, execute and eliminate mistakes.”
Both Rossville and Sabetha have executed at a high level offensively all season with the Bulldawgs averaging 446.6 yards and 42.5 points per game and Sabetha coming in at 384.9 yards and 46.4 points per game. How they generate that offense, however is vastly different.
Sabetha almost exclusively gets all its yards on the ground, powered by a backfield duo of senior backs Blake Plattner and Trae Snyder, who have each topped 1,000 yards this year. Plattner leads the Bluejays with 1,105 yards and 22 touchdowns while Snyder is right behind with 1,072 yards and 12 scores.
“All 10 games, we’ve talked about needing ball control and we can’t turn it over,” Sabetha coach Garrett Michael said. “We get three and a half yards per carry and that’s what we’re OK with. We’re not after the big play, that isn’t our philosophy. Our philosophy is keep the chains moving, keep the clock on our side and keep their offense off the field.”
The Bluejays’ ball control style could be even more key on Saturday, keeping Rossville’s explosive playmakers on defense. Senior quarterback Jacob Bradshaw has had a breakout year replacing departed All-Stater Tucker Horak, rushing for 1,706 yards and 24 touchdowns and throwing for 1,260 yards and 17 scores. Cole Schumacher has been his top target with 35 catches for 738 yards and 14 scores while Perry Foster, Dawson Hammes and Trevor Balch have combined for 1,126 yards and 15 touchdowns as a backfield complement to Bradshaw with Hammes missing three games with injury after being a 1,000-yard rusher last year.
But Bradshaw is the focal point and Michael compared the Bulldawg senior to what they saw from Nemaha Central and its quarterback, Ryan Hasenkamp.
“He makes their engine go and he’s a phenomenal back,” Michael said of Bradshaw, who has completed 72 percent of his passes and averaged 8.5 yards per carry. “Up to this point, he’s the best running back we’ve seen this year and he can throw the ball and when he does, it’s on the money. It’s not just him, they’ve got athletes around him much like Nemaha does, and they’re a very good football team.”
Hasenkamp leads Nemaha into its showdown with a No. 1 team for the second straight year. While the Sabetha-Rossville clash is somewhat a contrast in styles, the Nemaha-Silver Lake showdown at 6 p.m. in Silver Lake pits teams whose strengths are almost identical.
Just as Hasenkamp is the focal point of Nemaha Central’s offense, throwing for 1,184 yards and 13 touchdowns and rushing for 500 yards and 11 scores, so is Dalton Dultmeier for Silver Lake. The Eagles’ senior quarterback has thrown for 1,888 yards and 18 touchdowns and also leads the team in rushing with 580 yards and 10 scores.
“They do a good job of mixing it up and making you defend the whole field and that’s what we try to do as well,” Hamilton said.
“We both rely on our quarterbacks an awful lot and defensively we both play with a little bit of an open style,” Nemaha coach Warren Seitz said. “We both have kids with speed who like to get to the ball. It should be a great matchup.”
Perhaps the difference could come down to which quarterback gets more help. Mason Jones and Garrett Huske have combined for 1,024 yards and 13 touchdowns in the Silver Lake backfield, while Nemaha Central senior tailback Jacob Koelzer has run for 967 yards and 23 touchdowns and averages 12.1 yards per carry and a touchdown once every four times he carries it.
“Jacob could be a difference-maker and he has been in every game except for the Sabetha game where we couldn’t get him loose,” Seitz said. “We have to find a way to get him open because once he is, nobody’s going to catch him. He’s been a big playmaker for us.”
Nemaha Central is seeking a breakthrough playoff victory, having not advanced past the second round in more than two decades. Silver Lake, meanwhile, saw its run of five straight trips to the state semifinals end last year with a second-round loss to Sabetha.
That game has served as both a motivator for the Eagles and confidence builder for Sabetha.
“It really helps when you beat a team like Silver Lake, it just boosts your confidence,” Michael said of last year’s 34-28 win over the Eagles. “We talked about not starting over, but starting off where we ended last year and I think that’s where these seniors have taken us. It does give you confidence in games like this where these guys have done it before and were a big part of it. Confidence is a big thing in a game like this.”
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