(Audubon) KSOM will broadcast Audubon’s home date with Exira-EHK this Friday. A video stream will be available HERE
Audubon has 1-3 mark on the season with losses to Winfield-Mount Union, SE Warren, and Fremont-Mills. Exira-EHK is 2-1. The Spartan’s only setback came in a close game with undefeated West Harrison. Despite having won three straight against their neighbors to the south, Wheeler coach Sean Birks paints the picture of his team being the underdog in 2022. “The last couple of years they had some young dudes and now you’re starting to really see them play their style. They can throw it, they can run it. You can just see the energy and enthusiasm they are playing with. They hustle. They fly everywhere defensively. They are playing down hill. They are trying to get tackles for loss and really be physical. Their linebackers are really good. Their defensive end play is really good. They’ve got athletes all over the place manning you up in the secondary.” Birks says, “We are very much playing underdog this week in a lot of people’s eyes.”
The Wheelers struggled to establish things on offense in Week 3. During their loss to Fremont-Mills the passed for 23 yards and ran for 62. “It was a rude awakening. We got shut out. We got dominated on both sides of the ball. The good thing for us is that one is over and it taught us a lesson that we aren’t nearly as good as we need to be. Coming off of a win against Boyer Valley I think some of our guys thought maybe we had turned a corner and all of a sudden now we got humbled to say the least. Our kids know the rest of the way everything matters for district play. The last five games are what counts and right now we are 1-0 in the district. We have five grueling tests ahead of us and it starts with Exira-EHK.
Exira-EHK’s quarterback Trey Petersen will be the main focus of the Audubon defense. “A senior quarterback. He’s a coaches kid. He has such a good feel for the game. He can run it well. He’s not afraid to run guys over and obviously he can sling it. For us it starts with Trey. We have to know where he’s at. We have to keep him contained and that’s not an easy task. He’s elusive, he throws a nice ball. We just can’t have our secondary trying to cover for 5-6-7 seconds or someone is going to break lose.”
So far this season Aaron Olsen leads the Audubon offense with 415 yards rushing and seven touchdowns. Manny Beisswenger has been heavily involved with 88 rushing yards and 87 receiving yards. Evan Alt has 174 rushing yards and 50 receiving yards. Gavin Larsen is the team’s leading tackler with 31.5 stops, followed by Beisswenger with 31.
Audubon coach Sean Birks:
