(Exira) Exira-EHK’s 1-0 mark will be put to the test when they take on an athletic West Harrison team on Friday.
Exira-EHK coach Tom Petersen says the Hawkeyes, which won 58-6 last week, are extremely fast. “They have athletes all over the place. It’s going to be difficult to try and contain Walker Rife and Gabe Gilgen. It’s going to take another group effort. Hopefully our kids are up for that challenge.” Last week Gilgen carried nine times for 106 yards and three TD’s while Rife rushed for 97 yards on seven attempts with two scores.
The Spartans are coming off of a 59-8 win at Griswold last week. “I thought defensively overall we really swarmed to the ball. Usually we had multiple people getting there as much as we possibly could. I was happy with that. I thought our passing game was pretty good, but obviously we have some areas to clean up. We learned a lot from a week ago, so hopefully we can get some things ironed out.”
Trey Petersen had a breakout game at quarterback in Week 1. He passed for 157 yards and ran for 107 with a hand in six touchdowns. “He has come a long way. He’s been throwing some pretty good balls and making good decisions, but it’s a learning process.”
Tyler Kingery had two carries for 43 yards last week and six catches for 98 yards with three TD grabs. “He’s our fastest player. He’s become a lot more physical we’ve noticed. We have to find different ways to get him the football. I thought the line did a pretty good job protecting Trey and we were able to find Tyler on multiple occasions.”
Coach Petersen says the team has a lot of areas they can improve on. Among them were tackling, alignment, communication, sustaining drives, and blocking to the whistle.
Exira-EHK coach Tom Petersen:
