East Mills’ season ends in playoff opener

Remsen St. Mary’s blew open a 20-20 second quarter game with 28 straight points in a 66-28 victory over East Mills in the Eight-man football playoffs Friday in Remsen.

The loss ends the Wolverines’ season with a record 7-3. Remsen moves on to face Fremont-Mills (7-1) in the state quarterfinals back in Remsen this week.

On Friday, Remsen hit the ground running and got out to an early two touchdown lead before a pair of back-to-back touchdown passes from Michael Schafer to Nic Duysen knotted the score at 20-20 heading into the second frame.

And that’s where the Hawks took over.

With starting quarterback Blaine Harpeneau out with a leg injury, freshman quarterback Jaxon Bunkers and junior tailback Jeremy Koenck spearheaded a running attack that muscled its way to a 40-20 halftime lead.

“When they jumped on us and by halftime, we knew what was happening,” said East Mills coach Kevin Schafer. “They physically were just plain better than us.”

Schafer said it was obvious the Hawks had watched enough East Mills’ tape to know his team was undersized and susceptible to physical, hard-nosed football. His team saw plenty of that over the final three quarters.

“We’ve run into physically similar teams,” he said. “I’d compare them to Audubon with their talent and size and speed and we probably did about as good as we could do. They were just plain better than us. But I was proud of our kids in the second half. It easily could have been a continuous clock but we made plays and battled the entire game.”

The Wolverines finished with 386 total yards. Michael Schafer completed 32-of-55 passes for 295 of those yards. He also had a hand in all four scores, connecting with Duysen for two TD passes and on each to Davis McGrew and Jackson Wray.

Remsen tallied 606 yards of offense, with 473 coming on the ground. Koenck led the way with 261 yards rushing and three TDs on 23 carries.

The Wolverines graduate just three seniors from this year’s squad but all three – Michael Schafer, Thomas Anderson and Duysen – have been key, multi-year contributors.

“All three of them played both ways and they allowed us to play a style of football that we were able to win,” said Coach Schafer. “If we didn’t have the ability to throw the ball and we just tried to run the ball this year, there was no way we would have made the playoffs.”