Another steamy week of football preparation took us to Dike on Monday September 9th. It was a hot week at practice but we went in feeling pretty good about ourselves and where we were at after our first two games. We did also know that Coach Betts and his staff would have the Wolverines from Dike New Hartford ready for us. This would be another epic battle between these two rivals.

The game materialized rather slowly from what we all expected. Neither offense really got much going in the first half. We gave up a late score to widen the Wolverine advantage to 14 6. Then came the second half and the place went crazy. There were scores every time you looked at the field. We would score and they would return the kickoff for a TD or deep into our territory. They would then score and we would take the kickoff to the house. As this crazy second half unfolded, the Rebels fell to a fine DNH squad by a score of 48-26. This game was similar to the varsity game on Friday night. We played well and moved the ball but made way too many mistakes. We missed tackles, had some turnovers, special teams struggles, and penalties were the killer on this night. We will learn from this and get better.

Eric Stoakes had another big night on the ground finishing with 152 yards on 17 carries and a touchdown. Eric also returned a kickoff 68 yards for a score. Jake Schuman was 6 of 16 for 120 and 112 of those were on 4 catches by Cameron Murphy. Kainen Hendricks added 11 yards on the ground and hauled in 2 passes for another 8 yards to round out our offensive stats. Parker Bown also returned a kickoff 79 yards for a score. All in all, 280 total yards is not a bad outing along with 2 big plays on kickoff but defensively we cannot allow missed tackles and 48 points.

Jacob Walters led our defense with a game high 10 tackles. He was followed by Ty Eiffler with 6, Jake added 5, and Parker 4. Cameron, Bryce Clark, Carter Murphy, and Slade Wager 3, Tyler Pierce, Jed Peterson, Spencer Goos, Erik Knaack, and Eric all added 1 stop apiece. Erik also picked off a pass on defense for us. We really need to do a better job of wrapping up and finishing our tackles. For the most part we are in the right spot. We just need to finish.

Our next action will be Monday at Conrad versus the BCLUW Comets starting at 6 p.m. Catch a glimpse of Rebel football on the sidelines.