They're still the team to beat

Scoring late in the first half and again to begin the third quarter gave West Hancock a definite edge in a battle of ranked Class A football teams. Those touchdowns gave the Eagles a two-score advantage, which was the final margin of a 31-18 win over Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn on Sept. 30 at Peterson Field.

After a scoreless first quarter, H-M-S took the lead on Kooper Ebel's short scoring run. West Hancock answered four minutes later with a 14-yard scoring pass.

The Eagles recovered a Hawk fumble at midfield late in the first half. Three third down conversions set up a 15-yard scoring pass just 17 seconds before halftime, giving West Hancock a 12-6 lead.

The Eagles then returned the second-half kickoff all the way to the Hawk 3. They scored on the next play to extend the margin to 12 points.

"Them coming out and scoring as quickly as they did on offense in that first series of the second half was difficult for us to swallow," acknowledged Hawk coach Jay Eilers. "I'm extremely proud of our kids' commitment to playing hard. I think it is part of their DNA to play as hard as they do."

A 46-yard scoring run by Mitchell Smith pushed the Eagles' lead to 25-6. H-M-S answered when Ebel connected with Ethan Diehm for a 44-yard scoring pass. But Smith would take the ball into the end zone again to make the score 31-12.

H-M-S converted twice on fourth down during a 14-play drive, capped by Ebel's six-yard run. Ryan Borden recovered the onside kick, but H-M-S turned the ball over with an interception and the teams traded possessions during the final 8-1/2 minutes.

"Third down conversion was huge. They were 50 percent, 5-of-10. We were 4-of-16. We kind of counteracted that a little bit on fourth down. They were 1-of-3 and we were 6-of-7," Eilers said. "That is very good, but on third down not moving the chains within three downs tells you that defensively, they were flat coming after us and we allowed them to come after us and attack rather than us attacking them."

Both teams had rushed for approximately 2,000 yards during their first five games. But on this night the two teams attempted 35 passes and completed 19.

"I didn't realize we were going to have two spread football teams here," Eilers remarked. "I think both teams, based on film, have made a commitment to throwing the ball; have made a commitment to being versatile in that area."

Ebel completed three passes to Diehm for 62 yards, four to James Gellerman for 17, two to Travis Kamradt for 17 and one to Keevyn Jacobsma for eight.

The Hawks out-rushed West Hancock by 30 (192-162), with Ebel finishing with 129 rushing yards and Kamradt gaining 63.

"I think both teams played extremely good defense against the run," Eilers noted. "But I know there were piles when we were on defense and those piles were moving against us. And offensively when there were piles it was not moving in our favor. I was disappointed we were not the most physical team."

Kamradt led the defense with 7.5 tackles, including six solos. Other tacklers (solo/assist) were Ebel 7/5, Ethan Wiersma 5/4, Lance Berends 4/3, Gellerman 3.5/3, Trenton Vollink and Jacobsma 3/2, Ethan Baker 2.5/2, and Spencer McCarter, Diehm and Borden, 2/2.

• Next Up: at Hinton

Friday night's game at Hinton will go a long way to determining the champion of Class A District 1. H-M-S currently leads the district with a 4-0 record while Hinton is one game back at 3-1.

Hinton can move the ball on the ground and through the air. They have a back who has rushed for nearly 1,000 yards and two players with over 250 receiving yards.

"They've got a receiver who is extremely fast and extremely athletic," Eilers said. "They're doing a lot of things formationally, moving things around, multiple formations, so they have our full attention."

Eilers acknowledged it will be "a big game," but he is confident the Hawks will put last week's game behind them and focus on Hinton.