LITTLE FARM TOWNS, YOU PICK — Let’s start this Rewind with an apology to all those folks who want to read about the football played on Saturday’s in a big stadium or even the kind that will surely make us smile this Friday night in the 11-man quarterfinals.
Wednesday night is the kind of night I grew up with. Playoff football on a school night; throwing a game ball to an official while my heroes played for my dad. Let the record show that we never got past this stinking Wednesday in Hampton.
Not in 1986 when Polk (they didn’t even have Hordville and Clarks yet, in fact, the Bombers were also in the playoffs that year) beat our team 68-40. Dad never passed so much in his life and Kyler Van Housen’s dad was there, running for what seemed to be close to 500 yards.
Not in 1988 when McCool Junction got us in overtime, 48-42. Dad still wishes he’d have played defense first. Both of those seasons ended 7-3 in the tough Crossroads Conference.
And, not in 1993, when I got to play, but current Humphrey St. Francis coach Eric Kessler was the quarterback for the Flyers and they whooped us 52-6 on a Wednesday night. Dad wasn’t the coach then, but Mike Bailey was. He calls the plays now for Guardian Angels Central Catholic.
He’ll get another dose of the football — and the kids — in the league next Tuesday. The Bluejays will host BDS in a quarterfinal next Tuesday that maybe, just maybe, should be played in Lincoln. BDS won the matchup in the semifinals last year 44-40.
So, 16 teams remain in the 8-man playoffs; three from the Crossroads Conference: the aforementioned Eagles, High Plains and Exeter-Milligan in Class D-2. They still play pretty good football in those parts.
On a windy Wednesday, most of them did it with defense.
BDS held the high-powered Neligh-Oakdale offense to seven points. In a first round win over Pender, they scored 74. Not in Bruning.
“This is one of those teams that lives to play defense first and offense second,” BDS co-coach Mark Rotter told the Lincoln Journal-Star after their 42-7 win.
Down the road in Milligan, it was much of the same for Exeter-Milligan even though their final score was 48-32. With seven minutes left it was 42-16 and Sean Maxson was on the sideline enjoying the fruits of his 17-carry, 213-yard four touchdown night. This pack of Timberwolf seniors have won 47 of 49 football games.
“Coach said, ‘Run the ball, be physical’,” Maxson told me after the game. “We did that.”
And, in Dwight, where so many great football names have ascended from this 80-yard field to the big stadium in Lincoln, it was more defense and Fate that did the trick for High Plains who is now 8-2 and will play Creighton on Tuesday in Clarks. Tyson Fate, that is.
The senior wide receiver had to step in at quarterback for Thomas Young after he sprained an ankle in the first half. Oh well. Twenty carries and 231 yards later, the Storm were into the quarterfinals with a 68-22 win that ended the longest winning streak in the state at 15.
“My friend went down,” Fate told Ryly Jane Hambleton of the Lincoln Journal-Star. “It’s the playoffs. Lose, you go home; if you win, you keep going. I just want to keep playing football.”
Amen, Tyson Fate, you made it past Wednesday. A special feeling not everybody gets. More playoff football awaits you. Go play with your friends.
