(Council Bluffs) Lewis Central at Harlan was the crown jewel on the Class 3A District 9 schedule this year and now the two heavyweights will meet again in the playoffs.
Lewis Central coach Justin Kammrad indicates they weren’t exactly itching for a rematch with Harlan immediately following their regular season loss to the Cyclones, but now that it’s here they welcome it with open arms. “Fortunately for us we are in a circumstance where we get to see a district foe and someone that we know to be able to go out and compete and get one step closer to the ultimate goal of making it back to the dome and playing in Cedar Falls.”
Since a 28-10 loss to Harlan in Week 7, Lewis Central has gone 3-0 with an average of 44 points per game on offense while allowing an average of 8.3. “Our guys have responded well. You don’t ever want to say that’s a good loss, but we had a lot of things going on early in the season where we were just able to get by. Whether that was penalties or turnovers and we were able to get away with it, but playing against a good Harlan team they were able to execute better than what we did.”
Coach Kammrad revisits that October 9th loss at Harlan. “We didn’t play a real clean football game. We had opportunities in the first. We went to half time it was 7-7. We missed two field goals in the first half, we had a touchdown called back in the first half. We just didn’t really execute. In the 2nd half we were able to take the lead at 10-7. Harlan just kept grinding away and took the lead. It was 14-10 going into the 4th and then we just kind of self imploded. We had some turnovers, we had some penalties and got ourselves backed up and just didn’t execute and play well and credit to Harlan they kept plugging away and had some big plays.”
It’s Lewis Central’s 4th straight year in the quarterfinals. They advanced to this game thanks in large part to a big rushing shame from Logan Katzer. He ran for 219 yards in last week’s 34-6 win over #9 Ballard. Lewis Central held Ballard to just 94 passing yards and 93 rushing yards.
Lewis Central has shown an ability to beat you with the run or the pass throughout the course of the season. Katzer has run for 1,290 yards and 17 scores. Thomas Fidone is the big play threat in the passing game with 843 yards and ten TD catches on the season.
