After a tough first loss of the year, we as a coaching staff were anxious to see how our kids would respond. The task at hand was going to be a difficult one as we hosted the Knights from Union on Monday night September 16. The Knights and Coach Hadachek and his staff have the #3 ranking in the state in Class 2A. The Union program has been strong for a lot of years and we knew we needed to be on our game tonight for good things to happen. The game started well for us as we recovered a fumble on Union’s first drive and we marched it in for a quick score. Union then returned the ensuing kickoff only to trail 7-6 early. The rest of the half, the track shoes came out. We went crazy as we sped to a 34 – 12 advantage at the break. Union regrouped and got the game within 2 scores on a couple of occasions in the second half but we prevailed with an impressive 55 – 34 victory moving us to 3-1 on the year. We played well and moved the ball but still made too many mistakes. We lost some of our intensity and focus after halftime and had some penalties that were silly and undisciplined. We will get these things cleaned and this will be a very good football team. Eric Stoakes had a huge night on the ground finishing with 241 yards on 13 carries and 5 touchdowns. Eric also returned a punt 68 yards for a score. Jake Schuman was 8 of 13 for 123 with a touchdown toss to Josh Cooley. Jake also recorded a pick 6 as he intercepted a Union pass and took it 22 yards to the house in the 4th quarter to put an exclamation point on our 55 point total. Josh caught 5 balls for 71 yards and a score, Cameron Murphy pulled in 1 pass for 26 yards while Kainen Hendricks hauled in a 10 yard pass from Jake along with an Eric 16 yarder to finish off our aerial attack numbers. Defensively along with Jake’s pick, we also had fumble recoveries from Erik Knaack and Jed Peterson and both of these set up scores for us also. Kainen led the way from his inside linebacker spot with 8 stops on the night. Jake, Eric, Ty Eiffler, and Jacob Walters followed closely with 6 tackles apiece. Josh and Cameron 5, Bryce Clark 4, Parker Bown, Matt Roeding, and Thomas Mussig 3, Jed 2, Carter Murphy, Alex Tscherter, Hunter Beachler, Spencer Goos, Dmitriy Strohbehn, and Erik all had 1 tackle each for our defense and special teams. Our next action will be Monday at Ackley versus the AGWSR Cougars starting at 6 pm. This will be another solid test for us as the Cougars are rated # 6 in Class A. Catch a glimpse of the future of Rebel football.