Knights, Wolverines renew their football rivalry Friday night

As high school football schedules traditionally go, the homecoming date has typically been reserved for an easy victory for the home fans.

On Friday, Eight-Man No. 1 ranked and 4-0 Fremont-Mills host a home football game celebrating the Knights’ homecoming weekend.

But there’s no cupcake on the schedule.

The Knights will host state ranked rival East Mills (3-1) in Tabor in what is expected to be a key clash with District 8 playoff implications aplenty. Both teams have had this game circled on their calendar since schedules were released in January.

The rivalry between the schools separated by 16 miles has been absent for two year years with the Wolverines playing 11-man football in Class A. The rivalry has favored the Knights of late with Fremont-Mills winning four straight.

“With the proximity between the two schools and kind of our similar enrollment, this is a sort of natural rivalry for us. It’s kind of nice to get back in it,” said East Mills coach Andy Irwin. “We play them in basketball and had our battles in track but it will be a little different in football.”

The two teams last met on the gridiron in Eight-Man football in 2011, in the state playoff quarterfinals. The Knights won that night 58-22 en route to their perfect 13-0, state championship season. The playoff game was one of two meetings between the two teams that season. The first resulted in an epic 80-49 game won by the Knights behind Nate Meier’s record-setting 500 yard rushing, 10 touchdown night.

The Knights once again have a big, bruising running back in their backfield that’s helped key a powerful rushing attack that has averaged 265.7 yards per game this season. Spencer Phillips, a 6-foot-2, 240 pounds senior, has rushed for 483 yards and nine TDs this season. The senior has paired nice with speedy sophomores Sam Phillips and Parker Powers

East Mills has a two-headed monster in its backfield that’s helped the Wolverines average 272.7 yards per game on the ground. Senior Cavin Darnold has rushed for 559 yards and nine TDs and junior Josh Hopkins, despite playing this season with a cast on his broken right wrist, has rushed for 339 yards and four TDs.

On paper, both teams look like near carbon copies. Both rely on a physical run game and quick, aggressive defenses keyed to stop the run.

“That’s going to be a fundamental of any solid program,” Irwin said. “I think they’ve done a great job of maintaining over the years and we’ve indented to do that too.”

While the Knights enters 4-0 having rarely been challenged in winning by a an average of 34 points per game, East Mills is looking to bounce back after last week’s stunning 66-54 loss to Stanton on the road. The Knights have East Mills attention, Irwin said.

“We’ve got to look at practice this week after our stumble against Stanton and work on some things going into this game,” he said. “We need to focus on improving and they (FM) have our focus.”