(Neola, IA) — Its a battle of top running backs in the second round of the Class A football playoffs as Riverside visits Tri Center on Friday night.
Jaxon Gordon for the Bulldogs and Carter Kunze for the Trojans rank #1 and #2 in Class A in rushing. Gordon with 1,861 yards and Kunze with 1,629 yards. Tri Center Head Coach Ryan Schroder naturally would take his guy Kunze but he says both backs are pretty similar
Tri Center is coming off a 41-0 win over South Central Calhoun, Kunze ran for 210 yards but Sophomore QB AJ Harder threw for 223 yards and 3 TD — Schroder says he doesn’t want to rely on Kunze 100 percent of the time
On defense, Tri Center is led by Senior Brenton Kramer with 48.5 tackles, Kunze has 41 tackles, Athan Chessmore has 35 tackles, Jayden Johnson has 34 tackles, its a balanced defense that is used to facing balanced offenses
Tri Center is going through an historic season, they haven’t lost since week one to AHSTW, they win a district title and they get their first win in the playoffs in school history. Schroder just wants to keep going
For Riverside, they are coming off a 29-27 thrilling victory over Lynnville Sully. While Gordon had a big game — 212 yards and 2 TD — it was unlikely heroes as well like Maddox Knocke who caught a 72 yard TD pass, just the second reception of the year and also had an interception on defense where he usually contributes says Head Coach Darrell Frain
Dealing with Kunze will be a problem according to Frain — somehow they have to keep him between the tackles because once he gets outside the numbers, game over
Frain also knows the Trojans have a strong passing game with two strong junior receivers — Cael Witt has 55 catches for 854 yards and Zach Nelson 49 receptions for 77 yards.
In the end, Frain hopes his team pays attention to the little things because they could mean a lot in a close game — Frain says he wants to keep things as simple as possible
7-2 Riverside, ranked 8th, visits 8-1 Tri Center, ranked 5th
Complete Interview with Tri Center Head Coach Ryan Scrhoder
Complete Interview with Riverside Head Coach Darrell Frain
