(Lamoni) Lamoni is a win away from their first quarterfinal appearance since 2014. The Demons travel to CAM on Friday in a game that will air on KSOM.
Lamoni has just 13 active players, yet coach Bryan Nowlin says they’ve shown resiliency to get to this point and have stayed healthy for the most part. Coach Nowlin describes it like building a house where you have to break things down into sections or in this case position group by position group. “That’s about the best you can do. Obviously you can’t put eight guys on one side and eight on the other and really run some plays. We try to engage in game like situations in half line or inside or outside. That’s about the only way we can do it. You have to give our kids some credit, they respond pretty good.”
He admits sometimes it takes his team a quarter or a quarter and a half to adjust to teams during games. 4th rated CAM undoubtedly has caught their eye. “What do you say? They are undefeated, they spanked us pretty good last year, they are very well coached, they are physical at the line and don’t mess around. They run and that’s their game. They come out and say ‘Can you stop us?'” Then they bring it to you. Lane Spieker is a great back, Cade Ticknor is back at fullback, you have the big line.”
Nowlin calls Lane Spieker the best back they’ve seen all year. The CAM star has run for 1,300 yards and 28 TD’s. Lamoni avenged a regular season loss to SE Warren in order to get to this game. They reversed a 36-30 loss in Week 7 with a 38-13 playoff win. The Demons take a ‘nothing to lose’ mindset into this matchup. “We made some special teams plays, we had an interception return for a touchdown right at the end of the half which was a kickstarter for momentum in the 2nd half. It was a complete game from each standpoint. We moved the ball fairly decent on offense when we had to. That’s why you play football. I thought overall that might have been our best game by far.”
The winner meets either Fremont-Mills or Martensdale-St. Mary’s next week for a trip to the dome.
