Wolverines make it four in a row

A balance offense and a smothering defensive game plan helped lift East Mills to its first 4-0 start since 2015 with a 36-6 victory on the road at Bedford in Eight-Man, District 7 football Friday.

East Mills Co-head coach and defensive coordinator Claude Lang called the Wolverines’ defensive performance “by far” the most complete they’ve had in perhaps two seasons, he said.

“It was huge for us to come out and get those early stops and grab some field position our offense could capitalize on,” Lang said.

All night the Wolverine defense contained and pressured the Bulldogs’ offense, limiting them to 226 total yards, forcing two turnovers, a safety and four sacks. The Bulldogs two-headed quarterback duo of Cooper Nally and Brennen Sefrit finished a combined 8-of-20 passing for 113 yards and 18 carries for 74 yards.

“Coming into the game we thought controlling their two quarterbacks – they had a tall guy who could throw and a smaller guy who was real quick – would be big,” Lang said. “The key defensively was us keeping them inside the pocket and not letting them get us with their quarterback trap. We thought out defensive ends played extremely well, allowing our linebackers to make tackles and messing up their mesh point.”

The Wolverine offense was equally impressive – thanks to emergence of its running game.

In East Mills’ 3-0 start it was the passing game – 314 yards passing per game and 13 total TD passes – that saw them average better than 51 points per game. But Friday saw the running game come to life. They entered averaging 67.3 yards per game on the ground but picked up 140 yards on 28 carries against Bedford.

“We were able to actually keep the offense balanced and run the ball. I was joking with the officials on the sideline that we’d ‘Try and run the ball.’ I didn’t say we were going to because some teams have stopped us. But we were able to sustain some blocks and our quarterback and our running backs were able to get our option game going so that was nice.”

East Mills finished with 380 total yards on the night and led 36-0 before the Bulldogs seriously threatened.

Quarterback Michael Schafer continued his strong play, completing 21-of-36 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns.

In four games, the junior has completed 55 percent of his passes for 1,184 yards and 17 TDs. Anthony Rainey hauled in six of Schafer’s passes for 95 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Nic Duysen caught six balls for 47 yards and two touchdowns of his own.

Jackson Wray led the running game with 56 yards on eight carries.

The win was a big stepping stone victory for the Wolverines as it keeps them a perfect 2-0 in the district as they head into a three week gauntlet of games that begins with Stanton on Friday for the school’s homecoming game. East Mills then heads out on the road to Sidney before returning home with Fremont-Mills on Oct. 5.

“We know this stretch we’re coming into are the ‘big games’ that are going to decide the order of teams in our district,” Lang said. “Getting this one out of the way was big and we’re looking forward to Stanton this Friday for homecoming.”

East Mills kicks off against Stanton Friday at 7 p.m. in Malvern.