File photo by Ari Selvey Wabasso’s Sam Zeug (43) sizes up Sleepy Eye United’s Kam Kosak (21) during a South District, West-South Subdistrict prep football game on Friday, Sept. 14 at Sleepy Eye High School.

WABASSO — A program back on the rise takes on what could be its toughest competition of the season this Friday as the Wabasso Rabbits host the Springfield Tigers in a South District, West-South Subdistrict prep football game.

The Rabbits recently snapped a 19-game losing streak with an 18-8 win in Week 1 over MACCRAY. While Wabasso has dropped its last two games to Russell-Tyler-Ruthton and Sleepy Eye United, they have showed promise in both of those games.

“I think we’re just figuring out who we are a little bit,” Wabasso head coach Joe Kemp said. “Trying to stress those little things we can do to be successful with who we are. We had to come a little ways to come back and climb that mountain. It’s not so much what the other teams are doing, and I know Springfield is a tremendous talent. We’re kind of figuring it out and we can’t worry about what they do, we just have to do what we can to be successful and match up as best we can. Kind of get back that belief that we can win football games, and I think that’s starting to come.”

Wabasso is growing into a more experienced team this year, with plenty of veteran players all across the lineup.

“I think they’re seeing the benefits of playing those younger guys the last couple of years,” Springfield head coach Adam Meyer said. “Those freshmen and sophomores are becoming sophomores, juniors and seniors with some years under their belt. Joe Kemp has done a great job with those kids. They’re playing hard all of the time. They’re pretty balanced and can do a couple different things defensively. Its a well-coached team with a little bit more experience than they’ve had in the past.”

Springfield, on the other hand, is coming off of two straight state championship game appearances in Class A football. The Tigers have had a lot of turnover this season at important positions, however.

Meyer said his team has adjusted well to the changes and have been strong in the Tigers’ three wins to start the year.

“I’ve been pleased with how we’ve played so far,” Springfield head coach Adam Meyers said. “Week in and week out, we’ve had some tough opponents to start our season, and I’ve just been pleased with the execution we’ve had, especially considering the amount of new faces across the board on both sides of the football and in key spots where we’ve had a quarterback entrenched last couple of years and middle linebacker and free safety are all new this year. Moving from a different position to take on those position, those were some question marks and I think those kids have answered the bell.”

Kemp said the thing that stands out about Springfield is how many athletic players they have on the team.

“They’re very athletic when you look at them on film, just really athletic,” coach Kemp said. “All the way around the field, the back end of their offense and defense is very athletic. They have some good size up front with some kids who can run. They’re dynamic, they’re looking to make plays down the field, and they’re also looking to take what you give them, so you can’t drop back into those high, deep zones and just let them pick you apart underneath. They’re just super athletic is what stands out to me, you just have to find areas to expose them. That’s going to be our toughest opposition.”

In particular, WR/DB Brayden Sturm and DE/RB Aiden Moriarty stand out to coach Kemp as players that make an impact in every game for Springfield.

“The Sturm kid is really, really good,” he said. “And Moriarty is a nice player … [Gavin Vanderwerf] runs the ball really really well. But I’d definitely say Sturm and Moriarty do a lot of things well for them. I’d say Sturm will be the best player on the field, the most athletic player on the field. We have to know where he’s at at all times because he’s going to make plays on the offensive and defensive side of the field.”

Sturm sits at 188 yards receiving with a touchdown on 13 receptions while adding 14 tackles and three interceptions, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery for a touchdown on defense. Moriarty has 19 tackles and two tackles for loss on defense while chipping in 21 carries for 122 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. Vanderwerf has 249 yards and two touchdowns on 28 carries while leading the defense with 33 tackles, eight tackles for loss and two sacks.

One of Springfield’s new players is sophomore quarterback Parker Kuehn, who has impressed so far this season with 456 yards and three touchdowns to two interceptions.

“I’ve been happy with the way he’s been playing,” Meyer said. “He’s been doing a good job of protecting the football for the most part. He’s commanding the line of scrimmage and getting the ball out on time, and it’s just something where our whole offense is looking to be more efficient more consistently.”

Springfield is looking to bring more consistency to the offense and to get into the rhythm of the season.

“For us, on offense, we’re just really focused on being more consistent,” Meyers said. “We’ve had some really bright spots where we’ve been really efficient on offense. We’ve had some explosive plays, we’ve had some really nice drives, but we need to string possessions together where we have three or four of those in a row instead of getting in our own way. That’s been more of a focus for us than the opponent’s schemes. Getting our team in a place where we’re executing at a high level.

“Defensively, coach [Brandon] Wilhelmi and the defensive staff does a great job of mixing up looks, making it complicated for the opposing quarterback and playcaller with different looks up front and in the secondary.”

Wabasso, on the other hand, has a very balanced attack this season and has been able to find more success through the air.

“On offense they’ve been a little different each week,” Meyers said. “They’ve run the ball effectively some weeks, and then last week they threw the ball extremely well. They have some good balance going this year, their quarterbacks to a good job of getting the ball out quick and on time. They put their athletes in a little bit of space, and if you leave the box a little lighter, they’ll try to run the ball on you.

“Defensively, they try to take away shot plays. They want to make teams drive on them and put long strings of plays together. That’s something we’ll be focusing on throughout the week.”

Kemp said his team would like to improve in the run game as the season goes on so they don’t have to rely on the pass as much as they’ve had to.

“I would love to run the ball a little more successfully than we have so far this year,” coach Kemp said. “But we realize we are limited by our size. So we’ve had a little bit of spread, throw some short passes to get the ball out, kind of an extended hand off to take advantage of what the other team gives us. In an ideal world, we’d love to run for three, four yards a crack on the ground. But we just have to find out where our matchups are where we can be a little bit more successful. The last game we had really success throwing the ball. I’d like to have a little bit more balance than we had last game, but Sleepy Eye was allowing us to do so.”

Some athletes that have stood out this season for Wabasso have been Kaysen Harms and Nolan Leopold. Harms leads the team in rushing despite only taking 13 carries, breaking them away for 136 yards and a touchdown while also catching seven passes for 60 yards. Leopold leads the team in receiving with 12 catches for 154 yards and a score. Both Harms and Leopold have eight solo tackles and an interception on defense.

“Harms has been around for a couple years, he’s played against us the last few years at safety and receiver,” Meyers said. “Number 30 [Leopold], he’s a guy they throw the ball to a little bit. Up front they have some returners in [Zeke Olson], [Josh Timm]. They have a few guys that are returning at all levels.”

At quarterback for Wabasso is freshman Drew Kemp, thrust into starting duty after starter Jack Burns broke his hand in Week 2. On the season, Drew Kemp has 248 yards passing and two touchdowns to one interception. Calvin Hanna will likely carry the majority of the workload in the backfield, as he has 41 rushes this season for 117 yards along with five catches for 32 yards and a score. Hanna also has 17 total tackles and an interception on defense.

FINAL VERDICT

Both coaches said that turnovers are always an important aspect of winning a football game, but coach Kemp mentioned that any other kind of self-inflicted mistake would be costly against a contender like Springfield.

“We’ve got to control the ball, keep it out of their hands,” he said. “They’re explosive on the offensive side of the ball, so we have to win those little 3-, 4-yard battles and take advantage of as many of those as we can. And we know that we’re not a good enough team right now that we can afford mistakes.

“Right now we’ve got too many penalties, we can’t turn the ball over. Last week we had maybe 10 penalties and took away a couple of scoring opportunities for us. One took a score away from us. If we can clean up those things, it might have been a different game last week. We know that we can’t afford those mistakes. As the quality of the competition gets better like Springfield, you can’t afford to do those types of things.”

Coach Kemp added that they had to limit Springfield’s explosives as well and make them take long drives down the field.

“We’ve got to make them have long, long drives,” he said. “We can’t let them have those home runs early, and we’ve got to stay composed. They’re a good football team, so they’re going to punch you and how you react to that is the big thing this year. How are we going to react to adversity, because we haven’t been in that situation in a while.”

Meyer also mentioned turning Wabasso’s balanced offense into more of a single dimension, that would go a long way in avoiding a loss.

“If we can do our best to make them one-dimensional offensively, so we have a pretty good idea of what they’re going to try to do, I think that puts our offense at a pretty distinct advantage,” he said. “Something where we can get our guys to attack downhill a little bit.”