On Thursday September 26 the young Rebels took their show across the field to Conrad to take on the Comets in a Freshman – Sophomore game. These games for us are an opportunity for our Freshmen to get a lot of playing time and game experience. We also ask some of our Sophomores to come along with us just to add some more depth if we need it. We have not spent a ton of time with this group all alone since we have had a JV game every week since week 0 but it all needed to come together on this beautiful fall evening. It was a great night for football. The game started well for us as we took the opening kickoff back to about midfield and on the first play Jake Schuman took the ball 51 yards for an early score. We would never look back. We stormed to a 20-0 lead after one quarter on another Jake run and the first of Parker Bown’s 3 TDs. We made an early substitution with Erik Knaack sliding under center for his first action at quarterback of his young high school career. Erik ran the show and engineered 2 more scoring drives in the first half. Parker scored on a 23 yard run followed by reserve tailback Carter Murphy’s first TD run of his career. We led 33-0 at the half. The second half we moved some more kids around to see what they could do and we were very impressed by the effort and enthusiasm these guys showed. We had another Bown TD run in the third and then in the fourth quarter we handed the ball off to Joe Baugus and he responded with a 58 yard scoring scamper on his first touch at tailback. We cruised on to a 47-6 victory. We are 1-0 now and have a very busy next couple of weeks coming at us. Parker led the offense surge with 138 yards and 3 scores. He also kicked 3 PAT’s. Jake Schuman ran for 66 yards and 2 TD’s on 2 carries. Joe added his 58 yard score, Carter had 47 yards and a score, Dmitriy Strohbehn finished with 50 yards on the ground to wrap up our rushing total of 359 yards. Our offensive line did a great job all night long. Jacob Walters, Jon Edler, Jed Peterson, Thomas Mussig, Joseph Pepe, Spencer Goos, Slade Wager, and Jaden McGhee opened huge holes all night to really make our running game effective. Defensively Tyler Pierce led the way with 7 stops followed by Joe with 6. Parker and Jed 4, Dmitriy, Spencer, and Thomas 3, Joseph, Cameron Murphy, Carter, Erik, and Matt Roeding 2, Alex Tscherter, Jacob, Hunter Beachler, Jaden, Jake, and Bryce Clark all added a stop each to round out our dominate performance. Jake Mohlis, Thomas, and Carter all had interceptions for us and Jed recovered a fumble to aid us in winning the turnover battle 4 to 0. We did a lot of things very well on this night. We had a goal to reduce our penalties and play smarter football. We had 2 penalties all night and we were solid on both sides of the ball. As a coaching staff we are very pleased with this outing based on the amount of time we have specifically spent with this group. They responded like good football players and that is what we are after. Nice work guys and keep it up. Our next action will be Monday October 7 JV game at Traer versus the North Tama Redhawks starting at 6 pm. This group will then play again on Thursday October 10 at State Center against West Marshall. These games will be solid tests for us as the North Tama and West Marshall programs have been successful over the past few years. We will be ready to go. Come on out and see the future of Rebel football.