Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Cedar Mountain’s Jackson Guetter breaks a tackle on a first-half run during a Section 2, Nine-Man playoff game in Morgan against Westbrook-Walnut Grove on Tuesday night.

MORGAN — Any questions whether the Cedar Mountain Cougars would bounce back from last week’s rough loss at Hills-Beaver Creek were answered with multiple exclamation points Tuesday night in the first round of the Section 2, Nine-Man Football Tournament.

Unfortunately for the Westbrook-Walnut Grove Chargers, they were the ones on the receiving end of Cedar Mountain’s statement victory Tas the Cougars earned a 51-0 shutout.

The win moves the Cougars (4-4) on to a 2 p.m. rematch with the Wabasso Rabbits on Saturday in Wabasso. WWG ends its season with a 2-7 record.

Jackson Guetter led the Cougars with 13 carries for 193 yards and three touchdowns, while Stan Heiling had eight carries for 61 yards and a score.

The Cougars scored on their opening drive and rolled to a 38-0 halftime lead.

“I guess we didn’t expect to be up like that,” Cougars co-head coach Mike Freitag said. “From what we saw in film, No. 3 [Drew Swanson] was a real good player for them, No. 7 [Neil Kuehl] was a good player, the running back [Tucker Krick] was a good player. We were kind of anticipating a little bit closer game. But I thought we were going to be able to run the ball really well like we did. I knew their rush defense wasn’t that great coming in, but I wasn’t expecting the lead we had.”

The Cougars had a tough matchup to end the regular season last Wednesday as HBC rolled to a 60-8 win. That loss zapped some momentum away from the Cougars heading into playoffs after they had back-to-back blowout wins over Renville County West and Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart in Weeks 6 and 7, winning 51-16 and 57-7, respectively.

But the Cougars didn’t look like a team that was cooled off during Tuesday’s shellacking of the Chargers. Despite dropping temperatures, the Cougars were hot from their opening drive, a three-play drive that ended with a 34-yard touchdown run by Guetter.

The 2-point conversion run, also from Guetter, made it 8-0 with 10:48 left in the first quarter.

“We had our mindset to come with the ball every single play,” Guetter said. “We knew we had to come off and start out hot and get the first points on the board, everybody doing their job.”

Cougars quarterback Carson Schiller didn’t have to throw the ball much, but he was able to open things up thanks to the early rushing attack from Guetter and Heiling and finished by completing 6 of 9 passes for 130 yards and a touchdown. He also had a QB sneak for a 1-yard TD in the second quarter.

“Play action works really good when you can run the ball,” Freitag said. “We didn’t have to pass, but our run game really set up some of that play action and gave us some really good play-action looks.”

After forcing WWG to punt on its first drive following the Cougars’ quick score, Cedar Mountain had a little trouble with a fumbled snap that sent them back to a second-and-20 from its own 19. Heiling broke through to the outside, however, with a 21-yard run to erase that mistake and give the Cougars a first down. Following a 28-yard run by Guetter, Schiller connected with a 22-yard touchdown pass up the middle to Yzykiel Rendon in the end zone for a 16-0 lead after the 2-point run by Guetter with 5:54 left in the first quarter.

WWG had its best chance to score when it took the ball from its own 40 to the Cedar Mountain 3, but a third-down run was stopped for no gain by Thomas Dahmes and an incomplete pass on fourth down gave the Cougars the ball back near the end of the first quarter. The Cougars then turned that into a 97-yard drive that ended with a 16-yard TD run by Guetter and 24-0 lead after another 2-point run by Guetter.

“It’s nice to see smiling faces out there,” Guetter said. “Everybody comes out and everybody’s doing their job. And getting me the ball a lot, it comes down on me being a leader, too — getting the guys up after bad plays and momentum gains.”

A QB keeper up the middle for 1 yard by Schiller made it 31-0 following a Dahmes PAT kick with 4:43 left in the first half. The Cougars got an interception by Cayse Haala ended up leading to Cedar Mountain’s final TD of the half, a 9-yard run up the middle by Guetter, who was almost untouched. The PAT kick from Dahmes was again good for a 38-0 lead. That final TD of the half was set up with a fake handoff and throw down the middle to Dahmes, who ended up with a 64-yard reception.

Heiling added an 18-yard TD run in the third and Dahmes’ third PAT kick of the night was good for a 45-0 lead. Haala got in on the offense in the fourth for Cedar Mountain as he finished a drive with a 5-yard TD run.

WWG quarterback Connor Jackels completed 9 of 17 passes for 97 yards, but the Cougars ended up intercepting him three more times in the second half for a total of four interceptions.

Dahmes had two of those interceptions in the second half for the Cedar Mountain defense, while Owen Dittbenner had an interception for 42 yards. Guetter led with eight tackles, while Kody Wenisch and Logan Welch each had a sack.

Cedar Mountain now prepares for Wabasso, a team that defeated Cedar Mountain 22-0 in the second week of the season.

“They’re very well-coached, but I think when we had them earlier in the year, they had all their kids back from last year and we only had three starters and that was Week 2,” Freitag said. “We’ve gotten a lot better, we’ve kind of gotten better each week. It really showed today, the boys were just ready to play tonight.”