EG FOOTBALL SEASON FINALE

Hawks Beat Walnut, ‘Go For 2’ Tonight @ Exira

East Greene rolled over Walnut 54-14 in Grand Junction last Friday night to pick up its third win of the season and avoid the District 7 cellar. EG moved its district record to 1-4 while Walnut fell to 0-4.

The Hawks end the season tonight in Exira against Elk Horn-Kimballton/Exira. The EHK/E game does not count in the D7 standings, so EG’s win over Walnut was its final "official" game in district competition for 2009, while Walnut hosts Coon Rapids-Bayard tonight and CAM (Anita) travels to Adair-Casey in the season and district finales for those teams.

EG beat both Elk Horn-Kimballton and Exira last year, but getting a win over the combined EHK/E will be a much bigger challenge as the Wolverines are 5-3 this season while EG is 3-5. EHK/E has beaten D7 leader CAM, while its two of its three losses were by just 6 and 8 points to Adair-Casey and Glidden-Ralston.

But the Hawks will be riding the momentum from the Walnut game, which they totally dominated. EG got its ground game in gear, racking up 195 yards on 35 rushing attempts. Juniors Schyler Bardole and Nic Nicolaisen put the word out to the rest of the D7 teams that they are to be reckoned with next year, as Bardole lead the rushing attack with 72 years on 18 carries and a touchdown, and Nicolaisen was right behind with 70 yards on 5 carries (a solid 14 yards-per-carry average) and 2 touchdowns.

QB Tom Beger connected on 5 of his 13 passes for 110 yards and four touchdowns. He connected twice with Bardole for scoring strikes and once each with tight ends Aaron Lyons and Jesse Priest. Beger also scored a running touchdown, as he ground out 32 yards on six carries. His total yardage for the night was 142. Beger, Bardole and Priest each ran for a 2-point conversion to round out the Hawk scoring.

Overall, the Hawks had 305 total yards and 15 first downs while limiting Walnut to 212 total yards and 8 first downs.

Seniors Josh Neese, Tyler Gathercoal and Zach Beyerink anchored the Hawk defense. Neese had 5 solo tackles and 6 assists, Gathercoal had 5 solos and 3 assists, and Beyerink had 4 solos and 4 assists. Beyerink and Bardole each picked off a pass from Warrior QB Kyler McCarty, who was held to 81 yards and a single touchdown on 7-for-16 passing. McCarty also scored Walnut’s lone rushing touchdown.

McCarty was a real workhorse for the Warriors though, as he returned seven EG kickoffs for 119 yards total and three Hawk punts for 58 yards total, an average of 20 yards for each of his 10 kick returns.

DISTRICT 7 SHOWDOWN: Adair-Casey vs. CAM will be the spotlight game in D7 tonight as the winner will get the top seed in the 8-Man state playoffs, which get underway on Wednesday night. The game looks to be a toss-up. CAM was the hands-down favorite as the season began as it returned all but 2 of its starting lineup from 2008, when it won D7 with a perfect 7-0 record. This year’s league schedule was reduced to just 5 contests as the Elk Horn and Exira games were removed when those two schools agreed to form a combined football program and their combined enrollments made them ineligible for 8-Man competition, although EHK/E played a full nine-game schedule, including all of the other D7 teams.

EHK/E surprised the league two weeks ago when it notched a decisive 43-20 win over then unbeaten CAM on the Cougar’s home field in Anita. So clearly, CAM can be beaten. And AC will be riding the momentum of beating CRB last week in Coon Rapids, 36-29.

If CAM prevails they will be the undisputed champion at 5-0, but if they lose, then they end up tied with AC at 4-1 for the championship and AC will get the No. 1 seed in the playoffs because they won the head-to-head competition, which is the tie-breaker when two teams end the season tied and in contention for playoff seeding.

Despite last week’s loss, CRB still will qualify for the playoffs--even it should lose this week to Walnut. CRB would finish fourth in D7 at 2-3, behind AC, CAM and GR, which wrapped up district play two weeks ago, rolling over Walnut 46-6 to finish at 3-2. The more likely scenario will be CRB easily beating Walnut and finishing in a tie at 3-2 with GR and possibly AC, should the Bombers lose to CAM. That would leave a three-way tie for the runner-up spot in the district with all three teams at 3-2. As each of the three teams would end up 1-1 against the other two, the seeding for spots two, three and four in the district would then go the tie-breaker point system, which is based on the average margin of difference in each of the five district games.

Heading into tonight’s games, CRB has a slight advantage with a 4.00 tie-breaker score, just ahead of AC at 3.25 and GR at 3.00. GR’s score can’t move up or down as the Wildcats have completed district play, but if AC should lose, which must happen to create a three-way tie, the Bombers would be subtracting points from their current four-game point differential total (13), and if CRB should win, they would be adding to their existing total points (16) which would easily put them past AC and vault them into second place while AC and GR’s point total differential would determine the No. 3 and 4 seeds. And if AC loses, they can’t get anymore differential points, putting them behind GR, whose give-game point total differential is solid at 15. Thus, AC would drop down to fourth place and give GR the third seed.

So, this is a critical game for AC. If they win, they are the top dog for D7, hosting the No. 4 seed from District 8 next Wednesday. If they lose, they fall from [potentially] first place to fourth, and then face the long trip down to Stanton to take on the state-ranked and undefeated Vikings, a team that rolled over all three D7 opponents last year in reaching the 8-Man state playoff semifinal round in the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. This would be a pretty substantial turnaround for the Bombers, considering their big win last week over CRB on the Crusaders’ home field. AC will also have the memory of last year’s 24-22 loss to CAM in Anita on the final night of the regular season, which gave the Cougars the 2008 District 7 championship and relegated AC to runner-up status. Both teams went on to win their opening round substate games, but were eliminated in first round action.

EYE ON GJ SAYS: The Hawks must contain EHK/E’s Carson Smith if they hope to prevail tonight over the Wolverines. In EHK/E’s win over CAM, Smith completed 14 of 22 passes for 186 yards and two passing touchdowns, and he ran for 137 yards on 22 carries and another three touchdowns. Eric Johnson added 104 yards and a rushing touchdown to the Wolverines’ total output of 455 yards.

Smith also kicked three extra points and ran for a two-point conversion to give him 35 points for the evening. Final tally: Smith outscored the entire CAM team, 35-20.

EHK/E rolled up 42 points against GR last week as Smith passed for 220 yards and five touchdowns and he ran for another 65, which was the entire EHK/E offensive production. GR however rushed for an amazing 458 yards and 8 rushing touchdowns and prevailed, 54-42.

Smith was intercepted three times by the CAM defense and once last week by GR, so the Hawks really need to hone in on their pass defense to shut down EHK/E.

A win at Exira would match last year’s win total for the Hawks, and would be a fine finish for the EG seniors, giving them a two-year won-loss record of 8-10, which is a big improvement over the 3-14 they suffered through during their freshman and sophomore years. This group of Hawks was responsible for ending a losing streak that stretched from the end of the 2004 season to the first game of the 2007 season, a win over CAL of Latimer in Grand Junction.

All told, EG’s record from 2002 through 2007 was a dismal 6 wins and 41 losses. So 8-10 over two years may not look like much to the small-school powers of Iowa high school football, but it means something to EG‘ers--near and fall. So, more than anything...Go Hawks!