Fremont-Mills heading back to the UNI Dome

TABOR - It took all of 15 minutes in Friday’s quarterfinals for the Fremont-Mills football team to wrap up a trip to the UNI Dome and a spot in the Eight-Man semifinals for the third time in the last five years.

The Knights scored on all eight of its first half possessions and had the game on a running clock with 7:44 to go in the first half with a 48-0 lead. With the outcome never in doubt, Fremont-Mills cruised to a 67-12 victory over Lamoni before a reporter-estimated crowd of 500 in Tabor.

The Knights (12-0), who have outscored their three post-season opponents by an average of 41.6 points per game, will make their third semifinal appearance in the last five seasons, and first since winning the title in 2011, Thursday at 12:06 p.m. against Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn (10-2) in the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls. Newell-Fonda (9-3) will take on H-L-V/Victor (11-1) in the other semifinal at 9:06 a.m.

“It feels pretty good to get to go back,” said Fremont-Mills coach Jeremy Christiansen after the game. “You never know when you’ll have those types of opportunities so we’re just glad to have another shot.”

The Knights delivered all the shots in Friday’s quarterfinal.

Fremont-Mills went 58 yards in six plays to get on the board first when Mackenzy Lang, lining up at quarterback, raced in from 21 yards out.

After forcing a Lamoni three-and-out on their first possession, Jason Rusten connected with Sam Phillips for a 30-yard TD. After the two-point conversion, the Knights led 16-0 with just over five minutes gone in the quarter.

The Knights would follow a similar pattern their next two possessions with Rusten hooking up with Spencer Phillips and Sam Phillips once more on scoring tosses to push the lead to 32-0 before the Demons had even recorded a first down.

“It seemed like we were rocking and rolling there for a while. I can’t even pick out one guy who played well because we were just clicking all over,” Christiansen said.

After forcing the Demons to punt for the fourth straight possession to open the game, the Knights’ special team once again came up big when Parker Powers fielded the punt at his own nine and raced 71 yards for the touchdown. The special teams score was the Knights’ eighth of the season and the first for Powers.

On the ensuing possession, Powers came up big once again, picking off an Austin Tull pass and returning it to the Demon 11. Four plays later Spencer Phillips raced in for the touchdown.

The Demons lone first half offensive highlight would come on their next play from scrimmage when Colton Ranney sprinted 65 yards for a touchdown to make the score 48-6 with 5:53 to go in half. The touchdown was the first the Knights’ top defense has allowed in five weeks.

“It’s been a while,” Christiansen said of his team’s stingy defense. “It was a missed assignment. In eight man football, you miss an assignment and a kid that fast is gone.”

Take out that one touchdown and the Knight defense limited the Demons to 89 total yards, didn’t allow a single passing completion and forced three turnovers. Haydn Meier led the way with six tackles, including four for losses and Powers picked off two passes and wrapped up four tackles.

The Knights offense reached 60 by halftime and racked up 333 of their 427 total yards before intermission. Lang, often running out of the wildcat, carried 12 times for a season-high 172 yards and three scores.

“We’ve had that in for most of the season but we haven’t thrown it in there so we thought we’d give it a shot in short yardage and it worked out.”

Spencer Phillips added 96 yards and three scores on the ground and Rusten was an efficient 6-of-8 passing for 134 yards and three TD strikes.