Pioneer League bragging rights are up for grabs Friday night.
Iola High’s Mustangs step into the new league on the road against Osawatomie High’s Trojans. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at OHS Lynn Dickey Stadium.
“Osawatomie is a bigger and more physical team than Cherryvale and they are a power running team,” said Doug Kerr, Iola High head coach.
“Our goal is to create penetration by our defense and get to them in the backfield before they get started running downhill.”
The Mustangs and Trojans last met in 2008 and 2009. Osawatomie won both non-league contests in big fashion.
But both teams have new coaches — Kerr for Iola is in his first season and Rod Madden is in his second stint as head coach for the Trojans. Madden coached Osawatomie from 1990 to 2006 as head coach. He was an assistant coach for the Trojans last year.
“We’re playing several new kids in a different offense and we’ve had growing pains,” said Madden. “The kids have worked hard and given a great effort.”
Iola beat Cherryvale 22-0 in the rain last week. Also in the rain, Osawatomie fell behind Neodesha 21-0 by halftime, rallied in the second half before losing 39-26. Cherryvale and Neodesha are both out of the Tri-Valley League.
“We know we have to be better this week. Our defense played pretty well but we’ve made some adjustments to put our strength against their strength this week,” Kerr said.
“We’ve switched a couple of linebackers around and believe this will give us an opportunity to match up better.”
Kerr pointed to Osawatomie’s senior quarterback Austin Chisam as “their best athlete.” He said Chisam creates offense behind some big bodies up front.
Deven Ayers is a junior running back for the Trojans, who rushed for 151 of his 193 yards in the second half last week. Matt Lofling is the Trojan’s senior fullback.
“We’ve moved Stephen McDonald to an outside rush linebacker spot and moved Kaden Macha and John Whitworth into the middle linebacker spots,” Kerr said.
The Trojans’ offense goes through Chisam. Madden said Chisam is a multi-threat quarterback who runs well and throws the football well.
“We were more of a run team last week because of circumstances but we want that balance with a passing game also,” Madden said. “Austin throws well but we have some inexperience in our wide receivers and we’re working on it.”
