(Coon Rapids) After a first round bye, Coon Rapids-Bayard will open up the postseason by facing Harris-Lake Park.
The 6th rated Crusaders are 7-0. The Wolves have won five straight games to get to 5-2. Their only losses are to ranked opponents St. Mary’s, Remsen and Newell-Fonda. CR-B coach Chris Mohr says of H-LP, “Good team speed with a physical running back. They like to start it out with the passing game to open up the running game. They do a lot of bubble screens. We’ll have our hands full with that.”
Coach Mohr’s preference would’ve been to play last week, but they were one of only a few 8-Player team to have a bye in the first round so they tried to make the most of it. “Honestly we’d like to play, but it was nice to take the week easy and work on individual stuff and fine tune our offense. We were able to implement some new things and get ready for different scenarios we might run into.”
One benefit from not playing last week was getting a first hand look at Harris-Lake Park’s 47-16 win over River Valley. “It was good to go up and get a good look on them. We got to see how hard they play and how hard of runners they are. You really can’t see that on film.”
Over the last four weeks Coon Rapids-Bayard has allowed just 32 total points while their offense on the season is averaging over 52 points per game. Coach Mohr says the seniors have led the way in a lot of different ways. “We have seniors on both sides of the ball on the offensive and defensive line. Those guys set the tone for us and everyone feeds off of it.”
The Crusaders, despite not playing last week, have the 6th most rushing yards in 8-Player. Gabe Obert has 827 yards, Chance Andersen 409, and Chase Clayburg 383. Among the seniors paving the way have been Kale Pevestorf, Josue Ramirez, and Aaron McAlister.
