(Avoca) AHSTW draws SW Valley for a 2nd time this season. The Vikings beat the Timberwolves 28-0 in the regular season and now they meet for a trip to the Class A quarterfinals.
4th ranked AHSTW is 9-0. Coach GG Harris knows the 7-2 Timberwolves have the potential to give them a game. “That’s a really good team. It’s tough to beat a really good team twice and they are really well coached and they are scrappy.” Coach Harris says, “It makes it urgent to show that we’ve gotten even more better than they have. That’s a team that’s gotten a lot better at what they do and they’ve evolved. We know they’ve gotten a lot better. They were one of our toughest matchups of the season anyways. We know we are going to have our hands full.”
SW Valley has run for the 10th most yards in Class A with 2,254. Even though they didn’t score against AHSTW in their previous meeting they still ran for 229 yards. “They were still very successful moving the ball against us. We know that we are going to have to do things a little bit different or just a little better.” Harris points out, “Last week was an eye opener for us. They have some athletes and if they are in space they are going to hurt you.”
Two key forces on the Viking defense are Aidan Martin with 90 tackles and Nick Denning with 87.5. AHSTW got what some might call a wake up call last week when they trailed 4-4 Westwood 14-7 late in the first half. It was a good taste of competitive, playoff football that they grew from. “In a lot of different areas. It was important for the coaching staff as well and I’ll even say it was good for our crowd. It was a different vibe in our stadium. We all grew from it. We are hungry and we think we can be really special, but that doesn’t entitle you to anything. You still have to play 1-0 and believe in the process. We have some guys that have really shown maturity and growth.”
There were several bright spots from the 1st round win, but one of the biggest was Luke Sternberg’s 220 yards on 19 carries with four scores. AHSTW’s budding superstar is averaging 225 rushing yards per game over the last three contests. “Our goal is we don’t want Luke to have to carry it 20-25 times. We know that he can, but we don’t put him in a position where he has to. Sometimes the game presents challenges where you have to do what you have to do and that was a game where he got the ball a little bit more and it was nice to see his conditioning and durability.”
Also in last week’s win, Kyle Sternberg completed 12/19 passes for 177 yards and a TD. Brayden Lund caught six passes for 114 yards and a TD.
AHSTW coach GG Harris:
