(Logan) Two high caliber teams will get together in Neola Friday night when Logan-Magnolia travels to Tri-Center. Each squad comes in at 2-1.
Tri-Center’s lone setback was to Class 1A #3 Underwood while Logan-Magnolia lost a late lead two weeks ago to Class A 2nd rated Woodbury Central. Panther coach Matt Straight is very impressed by what he’s seen from Tri-Center on film. “They are very talented. A lot of speed at the skill positions. They mix in some physical play as well which is a pretty good combination. Freeberg is going to be tough for us to handle, but it’s not just him they have several other kids with speed. The Johnson kid at tight end is a very physical blocker and their other kids bring it pretty well too. They are pretty well balanced and it’s tough to plan against on both sides of the ball.”
Brecken Freeberg leads Tri-Center offensively with 373 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. His defensive numbers are even more noteworthy. He’s made 44 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss, and four sacks. “If he gets loose he’s going to be hard to bring down. He’s going to be hard to tackle in the open field. He’s going to be hard to block when we are on offense. Those are both challenging parts. Whenever you have a talent like that that is aggressive you can just hope to contain him as much as you can and limit the damage.”
Logan-Magnolia owns wins over Kuemper Catholic 40-14 and Westwood 51-24. “We’ve had some younger kids step up. We’ve been pretty consistent in our play. We are trying to play faster with fewer mistakes. I think that should be the goal of every team. I think we’ve done that for the most part. We’ve had a couple of kids banged up a little bit, but guys have hopped into their place and done an outstanding job so that’s been pleasing.”
In Week 2 they led Woodbury Central 13-6 at half before seeing the Wildcats outscore them 12-0 in the 3rd and 4th quarter for a huge district win. The Panthers responded well by rushing for over 400 yards last week against Westwood. “That was a tough loss for us. We were leading most of the game and lost it on a big play at the end from the other team, credit them. I think it’s always easy to come back off of a loss, sometimes it’s hard to come back off a win. When you come off a loss you are hungry and the kids were and the coaches were. When you come off a win can you come back and realize you have things to work on? I think that’s the challenging thing.”
In Class A, District 8 the competition is fierce week in, week out. “I suspected this from the beginning when I saw our schedule. There are very few if any breaks in the schedule. It’s going to be pretty tough week in week out. You better be on your game and if you’re not, you’re going to lose. I think somebody is going to get left out of the postseason even though we are taking four of seven, but someone is going to get left out that’s pretty good. That’s quite a statement and I’m sure not common in most Class A districts.”
Woodbury Central and Tri-Center are at the top of the standings. IKM-Manning, Lawton-Bronson, and Logan-Magnolia all have one district loss. Missouri Valley and Westwood are each 0-2 in district play.
Logan-Magnolia coach Matt Straight:
