(Exira) The Exira-EHK football team faces a road test against a ranked opponent Friday night.
The Spartans will travel to take on 3-1 Fremont-Mills. Exira-EHK coach Tom Petersen says the Knights are just as good as they usually are. “Nothing has changed. They have some big kids up front once again.” Petersen says, “The kids are going to have to go down their and be ready to play. The number one thing is to be ready to compete and I’m hoping our kids are ready for that opportunity.”
Fremont-Mills returned to play last week for the first time since September 11th and lost to Central Valley, NE. Despite the Week 7 loss, coach Petersen doesn’t believe Fremont-Mills was hampered much at all by their extended absence. “I watched their film from a week ago and maybe out of the gates trying to find some things they struggled a little bit for them, but I thought they really played well in the 2nd half. Having that game a week ago really got them back in football mode. I know that they’ll be ready to go.”
Exira-EHK has three seniors whose careers are winding down. Tyler Petersen, Wyatt Fahn, and Hunter Andersen have all been big contributors. The Spartans went back to the drawing board last week and found some ways to run the football effectively. “We threw a wrinkle in where we started to run a type of veer. I don’t want to have to throw the ball 50 times a game. We have to be able to run the ball. We are trying to find out ways to get out athletes the ball as much as possible in space. I thought we were able to do that last week.”
This will be the sixth meeting between these teams since 2016. Fremont-Mills is 4-1 in their previous matchups. The winner on Friday will play either Glidden-Ralston or Woodbine next week.
