(Exira) Exira-EHK brings back a lot of starters from last season. It’s leading to high hopes for the Spartan football team.
Coach Tom Petersen was encouraged by the team’s scrimmage last week. “We want to be able to run the football a lot more this year than what we have in recent years. I think we have some kids that we should be able to do that. Looking at the film from Thursday I thought we did a pretty decent for the most part in running the football. It’s something we are going to have to stick with. Defensively the kids played pretty well except for maybe one our two plays. I was pretty satisfied, but we still have a long ways to go.”
Petersen reports offensive linemen Easton Nelson, Gavin Bengard, and Jackson Radcliffe have all gotten about 20 pounds bigger since last year while tight ends Derrek Kommes and Cash Emgarten have also grown. The ball carrying duties will be spread between quarterback Trey Petersen, running back Aiden Flathers, and fullback Alex Hansen. “We’ll run Trey quite a bit and when you do that it provides an extra blocker. Aiden Flathers is going to get a lot more touches from the running back position and I’m going to get Alex Hansen involved. They’ve both done a pretty decent job in practice. Hopefully you want to be able to balance that out to be done by committee.”
8-Player District 10 sent two teams to the dome last year and Coach Petersen expects the competition to be very stout again. “I feel our district is loaded once again. West Harrison has a lot of upperclassmen and seniors that are going to be playing that are extremely physical and fast. CAM has some juniors that have been waiting their turn.” Petersen says, “Audubon lost a bunch also, but they have two kids up front and the middle linebacker with Larsen. Boyer Valley is going to be much improved. I think our district is wide open. It’s going to be extremely competitive, and I feel it’s one of the toughest there is.”
KSOM will broadcast Exira-EHK Week 1 contest against Griswold on Friday night. The game kicks at 7:00. A video stream will be available at WesternIowaToday.com.
Exira-EHK coach Tom Petersen:
