Category Archives: Football

Empting praises his team’s effort against St. Cloud Tech

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It didn’t take Alexandria football coach Mike Empting long to think of the main reason his team was able to control its playoff opener against St. Cloud Tech from start to finish on Tuesday night.

The Cardinals were coming off a 42-7 loss to Brainerd in the regular-season finale where penalties and turnovers killed any chance they had of staying in the game. Less than a week later, it was penalties and turnovers that told the story again. Only this time, it was the absence of those two things that led to a 39-12 win for Alexandria.

“I think the biggest thing in that game is we didn’t make mistakes,” Empting said this afternoon. “We didn’t do things to hurt ourselves. We sustained drives. Defense just played outstanding from the beginning and set our offense up with short fields…but we had just one turnover, and I believe it was on our opening possession. We had limited penalties. We didn’t do those things that hurt us during critical times in the regular season.”

Empting said Alexandria’s defense played with discipline the entire night. The Cardinals allowed just 35 yards of total offense in the opening half. They held the Tigers scoreless until the game was already decided in the fourth quarter.

Tech finished the night with 185 passing yards but just 62 yards on the ground. It didn’t help the Tigers’ cause that their all-time leading rusher Jacob Peterson had to watch from the sideline after suffering a broken leg in the regular-season finale against Rocori. That obviously hurt the Tigers’ chances, but Empting credited his players and his defensive coaches for his team’s ability to completely shut down Tech’s ground game.

“Peterson absolutely is a great running back, a great athlete,” Empting said. “He does things, makes people miss and all that, but on the other side of it, our guys played with tremendous leverage all night long. There was just nothing there for the Tech running game.”

The Cardinals know they have to play with that same discipline and have multiple guys around the ball in a rematch against Moorhead on Saturday night. The Spuds’ senior running back Chase Morlock is one of the best backs in the state this season after putting up 22 touchdowns through the regular season.

The Cardinals know what he brings to the table after their week seven loss to Moorhead. Alexandria was able to keep him out of the end zone, but Morlock ran for 142 yards to help his team stay unbeaten with a 25-15 win.

“He’s a very good running back, catches the ball too,” Empting said. “They find ways to get him the ball, but in the same respect, you have to defend the play that’s coming at you and be a solid tackler. That’s what we were able to do the first time we played them. We tackled very well. When the play is defended correctly and you have great leverage, then it’s up to the players to execute and make the tackles.”

Alexandria only lost that game by 10 points despite losing five fumbles to the Spuds. The Cardinals feel like if they don’t beat themselves, they will have every opportunity to stay in the game and have a chance to win it on Saturday night.

“Even going into the first game against Moorhead, it’s an offense that we match up well against,” Empting said. “We’ve done pretty well defending against every type of offense except one, (the zone-read). I think the guys feel good. I think they recognize the first time around against them, we turned it over five times. Three of those were inside our own 20, which set up your opponent with short fields. We kind of gave one away, and if we don’t do those things to beat ourselves, we feel like we will be right there.”

 

Empting talks Brainerd, injuries and playoff opponent St. Cloud Tech

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Wednesday night marked a tough ending to a tough regular season for the Alexandria football team on a cool and rainy night at Citizens Field.

The Cardinals came into the game hoping to build some kind of momentum heading into the Section 8AAAAA playoffs next week. Instead, Alexandria was left with a lot more questions after a 42-7 loss to a Brainerd team that finished with a share of the Central Lakes Conference title after finishing 4-1 in league play.

“Sometimes the game, it’s just block and tackle and throw and catch and hang onto the football,” head coach Mike Empting said. “We struggled with just about every part of that tonight.”

Fumbles continued to be a problem for an Alexandria team that lost five of them in a 25-15 loss to Moorhead last Friday night. Against the Warriors, the Cardinals lost the ball three more times. Those fumbles came at inopportune times, too; once with Alexandria driving deep in Brainerd territory in the first half and another that gave the Warriors the ball on the Alexandria five-yard line.

“We told the guys coming in, especially the last two games, if we hang onto the ball and tackle, we’ll be right in it,” Empting said. “We turned the ball over going into the end zone, struggled to make tackles…those are things that you can’t do. You can’t have that many turnovers and compete.”

Brainerd didn’t need much help to begin with. The Warriors (6-2) dominated on the ground from start to finish. Their stats had them for 460 total yards. Their running game accounted for 413 of those as quarterback Luke Boran and junior running back Conor Gessell shed tackles and ran through big holes throughout the night.

Gessell finished with 182 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries. Boran added 116 yards and two scores on 17 carries, while junior running back Logan Davis had two touchdowns and 80 yards as well.

Junior quarterback John Vogeler lowered his shoulder into Brainerd’s Grant Reuer during a second quarter run on Wednesday night. Vogeler had Alexandria’s only touchdown of the night on a 65-yard keeper in the third quarter. (Echo photo by Eric Morken)

The Cardinals came into the game wanting to sustain drives to keep Brainerd off the field, but they just couldn’t do that for much of the night. Alexandria’s only touchdown came on a one-play possession in the third quarter when junior quarterback John Vogeler made a couple guys miss before sprinting down the right sideline for a 65-yard score that made it 28-7.

“We worked on a couple new things this week, on a short week, and the kids responded to the new things,” Warriors defensive coordinator Jason Freed told the Brainerd Dispatch’s Mike Bialka. “We were able to put on a lot of pressure and get a lot of penetration with our defensive linemen, which allowed our guys to scrape off and make a lot of plays. It was our best effort of the year, defensively.”

Alexandria knows it has to clean up the turnovers, the penalties and the missed tackles if it wants to have any shot of continuing its season in the playoffs. The challenging part will be getting them to believe that they can do that heading into next Tuesday night.

“If they can just do the simple things,” Empting said. “Hold onto the ball. We’ve really struggled with turnovers. We struggled with penalties again tonight at really bad times. Tackling, just being better tacklers. We talk to the kids about that. I hope they believe us, but at the same time, it has to happen so they can see the result, which I think would be very positive. But it’s kind of a catch-22.”

* Mitch Thompson injury update: The game also came with a scare for the Alexandria players and fans when wide receiver/free safety Mitchell Thompson had to be taken off the field on a stretcher. Thompson’s head hit the turf when he was tackled on a kick return with four seconds left in the third quarter.

Thompson had full movement but the trainers took all the necessary precautions. The game was delayed around 25 minutes before he gave a thumbs up to the crowd as he was taken off to a huge ovation.

“That’s the hardest part of this job, the hardest part of playing this sport is to see an athlete go down with something like that,” Empting said last night. “A lot of what they’re doing they said is precautionary, but at the same time, there’s no such thing as a non-serious neck injury. Everything was moving. He was talking to us out there, but at the same time you hate to see that. You feel badly for the parents. That’s something that no parent should have to experience.”

Empting had just gotten off the phone with Thompson’s mom this morning when I talked to him about how Mitch was doing. He said Thompson was released from the ER last night after passing a number of tests. Empting said he suffered a sprained neck and a concussion that will likely keep him out for the rest of the season.

“He seemed to be in good spirits,” Empting said. “Sore obviously and all those things. I think probably a little shook up. It’s a scary situation for everybody, and I can’t imagine being the athlete and the parents going through that.”

It was one of two serious injuries that Alexandria players suffered against the Warriors. Senior captain Chase Duwenhoegger (OL/DT) also went down with a knee injury early in the game. Empting said the preliminary reports are that Duwenhoegger suffered a Grade III MCL tear that will end his career in a Cardinals’ uniform prematurely.

“He’s been through so much already,” Empting said. “He had surgery going into his sophomore year to remedy a dislocated patella on his other knee and made it back to play. He was a starter and then broke his pinky his junior year against Bemidji. He needed surgery from that and played with a big club on his hand…He’s played through so much and been through too much. It’s just tough.”

*Cards get Tech in 8AAAAA Playoff opener: Alexandria will open up the playoffs next Tuesday on the road against a team that has also been hit bad by injuries. 

St. Cloud Tech was already in the midst of a three-game losing streak after starting the season 3-1 heading into last night’s game against Rocori. That losing streak reached four games with a 26-13 loss to the Spartans, but more devastating for the Tigers was the loss of their best player.

Star running back Jake Peterson went down with what the St. Cloud Time’s reported was a fractured fibula just before the end of the first half last night. Peterson is the St. Cloud area’s leading rusher, something the Cardinals knew all about after he ran wild in a 28-13 win over Alexandria in week one. Peterson threw for two touchdowns and added another on the ground all in the first half during that game.

“Peterson was everything for them in that first game against us,” Empting said.

The Cardinals and Tigers will gather for an 8:15 p.m. kickoff at St. Cloud State University’s Husky Stadium next Tuesday as two teams trying to get on track. Both have lost four straight games, but both also know that doesn’t mean much once the records are wiped clean in the playoffs.

“After playing them in game one, I think as a team we’ve come a long ways since that game,” Empting said. “At the time, watching the video and everything, I felt like we let one get away from us then. We’ll see. They’re still a good team. They’re well coached…the good part is what we did in the regular season is kind of wiped away and we start 0-0.”

Empting praises his team’s improvement heading into Willmar on Friday night

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The Alexandria football team isn’t fooled by Willmar’s 1-3 record as it goes on the road to face another tough Central Lakes Conference opponent this Friday night.

Willmar has been in every game it has played this season but found itself on the losing end of a lot of those. None was harder to take than a 22-21 loss at Rocori last Friday that would have halted a now 16-game winning streak for the Spartans.

Willmar held an explosive Rocori offense to just 61 yards in the second half before Mac Mueller found Nick Thorpe for the winning touchdown with four seconds left. Willmar has combined to lose by just nine points in its three losses this season.

” They’re a good 1-3 team,” Alexandria head coach Mike Empting said. “They have been in four really close games. They’re pretty strong defensively, two real big tackles on defense who will be tough to move and two active inside linebackers behind them. Offensively, they have a three-year starting quarterback who throws the ball and runs the ball well.”

Alexandria quarterback John Vogeler got away from St. Cloud Apollo’s Dusty Cassens and looked down field for an opening on a run against the Eagles on Saturday. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

Alexandria knows all about senior quarterback Alex Grove. The Cardinals have seen first-hand how capable he is of running and throwing the ball. Grove showed that again last week as he had a hand in all three Willmar touchdowns, two coming through the air and one on the ground.

“With any spread-option team we see, Rocori and teams like that, it begins and ends with the quarterback,” Empting said. “It seems like they take their best athletes, put them back there and let them use their athleticism. [Grove] runs it really well, throws it pretty well. We’re going to have to play very disciplined on defense.”

That’s an area where Empting said his team improved dramatically against St. Cloud Apollo compared to where they were through the first three weeks of the season. The Cardinals defense looked like a much more confident unit against the Eagles on Saturday.

Empting was happy with his team’s improvement on that side of the ball as he watched them play on the field that day. After watching the tape, he was even more impressed with the steps they took just one week after giving up 45 points to Fergus Falls.

“We did so many things a lot better against Apollo,” he said. “We looked like a much more organized defense. The kids came with much more leverage, they were reacting a lot faster to what they were seeing. Those are the kind of things you start to see when the kids aren’t thinking about it as much. When they’re confident, they play a lot faster. All of a sudden, the kids back there who we know are athletic, their athleticism is going to start showing. We started to see that last week.”

The game against Willmar on Friday will be another opportunity to gauge that improvement against a quality team. It doesn’t get any easier after that with Bemidji, Moorhead and Brainerd, the final three teams on Alexandria’s schedule, combing for a 9-3 record through the first four weeks. Empting knows it will be a challenge, and he’s excited to see how his team responds to it.

“The kids have been great,” he said. “They’re working hard. With a young group like this you kind of wait for that breakthrough. With the way things were going, losing can be a motivating factor. That motivation always comes but you hope it comes this season and not the next…I credit our kids and the leaders on this team. They have not allowed apathy to set in. They believe in one another, they’re continuing to get better and believing in the coaching staff and what we’re doing.”

Knoblach makes immediate impact in return from surgery

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Every athlete wants to return from injury as quickly as possible, but Alexandria’s Nick Knoblach had a little extra motivation.

Knoblach had to watch for three weeks as a young Cardinals defense struggled to learn on the fly against some good offenses from the Central Lakes Conference. All the while, the senior cornerback who played an integral role on this team as a junior felt like he could help if he could just get back on the field.

Senior cornerback Nick Knoblach defended St. Cloud Apollo’s Noel Teigen on a jump ball along the sidelines during the Cardinals’ homecoming game on Saturday. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

Knoblach and his coaches weren’t exactly sure when that would happen after he underwent hernia surgery on August 21. Recovery time was expected to be 4-6 weeks. He pushed himself through rehab to make sure it was closer to four, and sure enough, on Saturday afternoon he lined up in the secondary and helped the Cardinals put together their best defensive game of the season in a 21-7 win over St. Cloud Apollo.

“It was four weeks exactly last Tuesday,” Knoblach said. “I felt great today. Obviously it’s still going to be a little sore, but it’s just something you got to play through and deal with.”

Knoblach didn’t waste any time making an impact in the Alexandria win. He made a great break on a ball in the second half when the Cardinals were still clinging to a one-possession lead. Knoblach read the route and came a long ways to get in front of an Apollo receiver for an interception that was one of five takeaways on the day for the Alexandria defense.

“Those are the types of things we’ve been missing that he brings back to our defense a little bit,” head coach Mike Empting said. “You look at our defensive backs. We have some juniors and seniors playing in our defensive backfield, but again, Nate Huss is really the only other player who had some experience there last year.”

Knoblach lined up with an outside receiver during Alexandria’s game against Apollo on Saturday. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

Knoblach’s experience on the back end of the defense was something the coaches knew they would miss early on. Add the athleticism and leadership abilities that he brings to the team as a captain, and it was a blow that Empting knew would be hard to overcome.

“He’s that leader,” he said. “He’s the one coming back who had a lot of experience back there. His presence showed right away in his first game back today.”

The importance of leadership on a young team is something Empting has emphasized since the beginning of camp. Knoblach provided that before the injury and then during the recovery as he worked to get back on the field to help his teammates.

“He was really motivated to get back,” Empting said. “He wanted to be out there with the guys. I’m sure it was difficult to watch the struggles that his teammates were going through this season and not being able to do anything about it. I’m sure he wanted to get back out there as quickly as he could.”

 

Cards focus on fundamentals after lopsided loss to Rocori

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Alexandria football coach Mike Empting had never been a part of a loss like the 43-0 beating his team took at Rocori last Friday night, which made knowing how to handle it with his players a learning situation.

In the end, he determined the best way to move forward was to make sure they didn’t look back. The Alexandria coaching staff hasn’t watched any film from that loss to the Spartans. They haven’t shown any footage to their players. And after addressing a few things in the locker room, the coaching staff decided it wouldn’t do anybody any good to dwell on what had just happened.

Alexandria head coach Mike Empting talked things over in between plays with junior quarterback John Vogeler during the Cardinals’ season opener against St. Cloud Tech. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

“I don’t know if there is going to be much good taken from that,” Empting said. “The kids know. They know we can’t fumble the ball that many times. They know you can’t give up big plays on defense. If a kid gets beat deep, he knows that. You’re not doing him any good by beating him up more three or four days after that.”

Instead, Empting said the focus in practice leading up to another road game against a 2-0 Fergus Falls team has been teaching. Empting feels the most important thing for his team right now is to concentrate on themselves rather than focusing on anything their opponents do.

That is one of the biggest lessons learned from a disheartening loss to Rocori. Empting said the Spartans were as athletic and explosive on offense as he expected. He knew leading up to the game that being out of position on defense would mean a lot of big-play possibilities. That’s exactly what happened as the Spartans connected on six scoring plays of 17 yards or more.

“Some of the things that they did, just running play action right at our linebackers and hitting little seam routes right behind them, that’s just inexperience on the part of our kids not seeing that play very often,” Empting said. “They threw a lot at our young linebackers. Things like double screens, slip screens, their zone read option. That’s a lot for those young guys to try and take in.”

A lot of these guys didn’t see those kind of plays playing at the freshman level last year. Now as sophomores, they are being asked to recognize them early as the play unfolds on the field.

“We’re asking a lot of kids to move from the freshmen level to varsity and know how to react to that,” Empting said.

Practice for the Cardinals this week has focused a lot more on what they can do to get better than anything Fergus Falls might do on Friday night. The Otters are fresh off two straight one-point wins over Sauk Rapids-Rice (28-27) and Willmar (21-20). The Otters have some early-season momentum and if the Cardinals are going to stop that, they know they need to clean up a lot of things on both sides of the ball.

“Offensively, we haven’t spent a lot of time on what Fergus Falls is going to do,” Empting said. “Defensively, they run the same things we do. But we just got back to doing what we do. We have so many fundamental problems out  there on the offensive side that we just had to get back to the very basics. Defensively, I think we’re in that same spot.”

Empting said his players have responded well to that approach in practice this week. He credited his seniors and his captains for keeping some of the younger players’ spirits up after the loss to Rocori. Ultimately, he hopes that leads to plenty of improvements on Friday night.

“I think a win would mean a lot to the team’s psyche,” Empting said. “But I always tell the kids that you can’t evaluate a season as it goes along. You have to play it out and then look back, see how all the other teams did that you played against. We had a relatively close game against [St. Cloud] Tech. Then we come out against Rocori and you think what kind of team are we, really? I think it would just be good to play well [against Fergus Falls]. Not turn it over and not give up big plays defensively.”

 

Osakis’ Zimmel shows little rust returning from an ACL tear

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Osakis’ Kilar Zimmel was walking on crutches and forced to miss a week’s worth of school after coming off surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee a little more than seven months ago.

That’s hard to believe after watching him fly all over the football field last Friday night. Zimmel could be spotted almost everywhere during his team’s 35-14 win over New York Mills. He returned punts, played free safety on defense and lined up on the outside as this team’s go-to receiver on offense. So much for easing his way back into things.

Zimmel went up over the defense in his attempt to bring down a pass near the goal line during the Silverstreaks’ win over New York Mills last Friday night. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

“It’s amazing,” he said. “Going from being completely injured, sitting on my bed and out from school for a week and coming back and being this physical, it’s nice. I feel great. My legs still get a little bit tired…but I came back hard, and I’m happy with how I came back.”

It was a much longer process than he ever imagined at first. Osakis was playing a basketball game at Upsala on January 3 when Zimmel went up to try and block a shot on a fastbreak. He hyper-extended his left knee when he landed.

“We thought it was just a minor knee strain,” he said. “So I was at practice every day at basketball, shooting around, being with the team thinking I was going to be coming back in a little while. Then the MRI showed it was an actual ACL tear.”

Zimmel went in for surgery on February 3. Two days later he went to his first day of rehab. Instead of a few weeks as originally thought, it would take more than six months to regain the strength and balance that he had lost in the knee. Every workout he did was done with the goal of returning for the start of his senior year of football in mind.

“As soon as it happened last winter, he talked to me and the first thing he said was, ‘They said I’ll be ready for football,’ ” Osakis head coach Bill Infanger said. “He’s taking care of himself by wearing the knee brace now at practice and doing all the right things to get himself ready to go.”

Zimmel said the knee brace has slowed him down a little bit, but other than that, he feels the same way he did before the injury. He showed he still has plenty of athleticism when he went up over a New York Mills’ defender to haul in a 31-yard pass near the goal line last Friday. That set up a touchdown run that made it 21-0 in the first half. Zimmel also had one of four interceptions for the Silverstreaks that night.

“He’s doing great,” Infanger said. “The thing he’s got left to bring back is maybe a little bit of speed that he had last year that we’re not seeing yet, but his athleticism hasn’t changed at all. We’ve always felt he’s one of the best guys at going up and getting the ball that we’ve had in this program in a long time. We want to give him a lot of opportunities to make plays like he did tonight.”

That’s exactly what Zimmel wanted to hear coming into this season. Most ACL tears take 6-9 months to recover from. He pushed through his rehab to make sure he returned on the shorter end of that timetable.

“As soon as I knew it was an ACL tear, I knew it was at least six months,” Zimmel said. “That put me through baseball, so I needed to get ready for football, get bigger, stronger, faster. I rehabbed and then  worked in the weight room this summer with all the guys.”

All that work paid off when he took the field on August 30 for the season opener. Zimmel never let fear of missing his senior year enter his mind during the recovery process. Now that he’s back, he takes the field with the same approach.

“I’m not thinking about it,” he said. “The first game, I worried about it the night before. Game day came, I didn’t even think about it. It doesn’t bother me.”

Cardinals get another tough test this week

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Those who thought Rocori might suffer the effects of losing so many quality seniors off of last year’s Class 4A state championship team might be in for a surprise this year.

At least that’s the way it looks on paper after week one. With a group of 31 new seniors, the Spartans did something they hadn’t done in 21 years in beating the Brainerd Warriors last Friday. The game wasn’t even close as Rocori jumped out to a 30-0 lead by the half and went on to win 48-28. You can count Alexandria head coach Mike Empting among those impressed after watching the tape from that game earlier this week.

Alexandria junior Riley Hvezda showed off some of the athleticism that head coach Mike Empting sees in his receivers as he brought down a ball over St. Cloud Tech’s Josh Schaefer last Friday. Hvezda made the catch but was ruled out of bounds near the back of the end zone. (Echo Press photo by Eric Morken)

“I think to suggest that they could repeat as state champions might be a tall order, but they looked pretty good on video,” he said. “They looked very athletic, very dynamic offensively, much like they were last year. They’ve got good athletes at all the skill positions. Their offense begins and ends with their quarterback, and he’s a big key for us.”

That quarterback is senior Mac Mueller, who is taking over for all-conference signal caller Nate Meyer. Mueller played like he had something to prove against the Warriors, racking up 371 total yards. He showed off his dual-threat capabilities, rushing for 173 yards on 19 carries and throwing for an additional 198 yards.

“He definitely runs the ball better than he throws it,” Empting said. “But he throws it well enough that we have to respect that. They have athletes at those receiver spots who catch it really well…they make you defend the whole field. You have to defend the run and the pass.”

Empting said his guys have to be disciplined in their assignments in order to slow down Mueller and this offense. One guy out of position could mean a big play for the Spartans.

Offensively, the Cardinals will try to clean up some of the things that hurt them against Tech last week. After watching that tape, Empting believes there are some positive things to build on.

“I thought we did some very good things in the second half,” he said. “We made a lot of mistakes, timing issues, mesh issues in the backfield with our running game that we have to work out this week. I think we have to continue to throw the ball.  I thought minus one throw, John made good decisions and our receivers showed they could catch the ball and do some things with it.”

Check the Friday edition of the Echo Press for more from Empting and his team’s first road test against another tough team in the Central Lakes Conference.

Cards hope their young players can grow up fast (w/video)

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Alexandria head football coach Mike Empting has probably never gone into a season where he’ll need so many young players to grow up early in their careers than the one he is about to embark on this fall.

I spent Tuesday at Alexandria’s morning practice where I caught up with Empting and five of his six senior captains. We talked about how that youth will affect this team’s chances in an always tough Central Lakes Conference. I’ll have a complete story on that in the Echo Press before next Friday’s season opener against St. Cloud Tech at Citizen’s Field. In the meantime, here are a few of the biggest storylines facing the Cardinals heading into that game.

* The Alexandria coaching staff knows dealing with low numbers in individual classes is inevitable sometimes, but they hope to avoid it in back-to-back classes. That’s exactly the situation the Cardinals find themselves in this fall with just 30 juniors and seniors on this roster, many of which are bunched into the same positions on the field.

“We’ve had a class where our numbers have been down, but they’ve always been followed by a group that has average or above average numbers,” Empting said. “We have kind of below average numbers in our top two grades right now. The kids are great. The quality of kids that we have there are outstanding. I just wish that we had more of them.”

Alexandria sophomore Jake Bear looked for a hole to open up after taking a handoff during practice on Tuesday. Bear is one of the young players this team will be counting on heading into next Friday’s season opener. (Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press)

That means a lot of guys will be asked to make an impact on both offense and defense. It also means there will be plenty of sophomores competing for starting and back-up roles on this team. It’s a concern, not because Empting doesn’t like their talent, but because it’s tough to win with 16-year-old kids going up against junior and senior-laden teams in the CLC.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” Empting said when I asked him if that alters expectations this year. “In our top two grades, we have a total of 30 kids. We have 36 in the sophomore class, so we have more in one group than we do in our top two grades combined. That’s a challenge.”

“I think it’s going to be a year where we’re going to have to gain some experience, definitely. The younger kids are going to have to get some playing time…Like I said, they’re good athletes. We’re going to have good athletes on the field. But again, with that youth, they lack the years of training, in some cases durability because they’re 16-year old kids competing against 18-year-old kids. That’s a tough order in the game of football.”

* Avoiding injuries in those top two grades will be important for this team, and it’s an area where the Cardinals have already taken a hit. Empting said starting senior cornerback Nick Knoblach will be out at least 4-6 weeks after having sports hernia surgery on Tuesday.

It’s an injury that Knoblach dealt with earlier this summer during Legion baseball. He thought he needed surgery in late June before he was told on a second look that the injury was just a strained ligament that would heal on its own.

The pain returned once he started getting some contact at the beginning of camp. Empting said Knoblach met with a specialist yesterday where they decided to schedule the surgery for today.

“He’s a captain,” Empting said. “Obviously there’s that leadership piece that’s going to be missed, and he is definitely a good athlete. He was our starting cornerback and figuring into the mix on the offensive side as well. It’s tough to replace an athlete like Nick, and he has that experience because he played for us there last year as well. Those are two things that are difficult to replace, but we have kids who are going to step in there. We have to. We have to move forward.”

* Junior John Vogeler will be stepping in as this team’s starting quarterback this season. Vogeler showed some good zip on his throws while hitting guys in stride during passing drills this morning.

Head coach Mike Empting talked things over with his junior quarterback, John Vogeler, during practice on Monday morning. (Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press)

Empting said he likes the athleticism that Vogeler brings to the table as a three-sport athlete. I wouldn’t expect the stage to be too big for him even as a first-year starting quarterback. Vogeler is used to the varsity level after averaging 11.8 points per game in basketball and competing with the Alexandria varsity golf team as a sophomore.

Empting listed senior Nathan Huss and juniors Riley Hvezda and Mitchell Thompson as guys he believes can help Vogeler stretch the field a little bit this season.

“We have some guys who I think can catch the football,” he said. “We’re still trying to find our way at tight end. James Holmquist is in the mix there, along with Joe Gorghuber and Aaron Steidl. Aaron is probably going to have to be a full time defensive player as well, so he might have limited reps there. Tanner Runge, a senior, is in the mix as well.”

* Just because this team lacks a lot of depth in the junior and senior classes doesn’t mean those upperclassmen are ready to accept a rebuilding season. That’s the message the captains on the team had when I talked to them after practice.

“We have the same goals of getting to the section, being competitive,”  OT/DT Tyler Meyer said. “We might not have a lot of superstars on the team, but we have a lot of guys that put in the work in the off-season who have been working hard. They want to make something of their year, whether they be juniors or seniors and all the way down.”

Max Flowers (DT), Chase Duwenhoegger (OG/DT) , Ted Deitz (OT/DE), Knoblach (CB) and Tyler Kelly (LB/RB) will join Meyer as the six captains expected to lead the way towards accomplishing those goals.

* Also new this season will be Alexandria moving from Section 8-4A to Section 8-5A after the Minnesota State High School League made the decision to move to seven classes for football, including 9-man. Joining the Cardinals in the revamped section will be Moorhead, Sartell-St. Stephen, Sauk Rapids-Rice, St. Cloud Apollo and St. Cloud Tech.

“I don’t think [it changes things] too much,” Empting said. We get thrown in with Tech and Moorhead, and we play those teams anyway. It’s not like we’re getting thrown in there with the Elk Rivers or Buffalo or Wayzata or anything like that. They are bigger schools at playoff time. We’re not going to run into Fergus Falls or Little Falls, those types of teams, so it gives us a bigger challenge at the end of the season.”

*Below, Mike Empting talks about the youth on this team, the strength of the guys up front and junior quarterback John Vogeler. (I apologize for the wind noise in the middle.)






Osakis football feels stronger, better prepared to battle in AA

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The Osakis football team has put in the work in the weight room this off-season and is ready to see how that translates to the field in 2012.

I spent Monday morning in Osakis as the Silverstreaks worked their way through a three-hour practice before ending with an hour in the weight room. Afterwards, I caught up with captains Garret Scherr, Austin Rollag and Brian Thorstad, along with third-year head coach Bill Infanger, to find out how things are going as they try to build upon last year’s 6-3 season.

I’ll have a full story on that before next Thursday’s season opener at Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg. In the meantime, here are a few highlights from my conversation with them today.

*Infanger has preached the importance of getting in the weight room during the off-season ever since he took over this program. Every year, more kids have bought into that.

“I don’t know if we’re completely, 100 percent where we want it to be yet,” Infanger said. “But we are seeing a progression in that direction every year, and this year’s better than the last. We’ve had a better weight room participation through the summer and through the off-season, winter and spring. It’s going in the right direction.”

His three captains echoed that sentiment and said the team as a whole is better prepared to go up against the bigger Class AA schools they will face in the playoffs. No where is that more apparent than up front where Lane Arkfeld (RT), Scherr (RG), Derrick Swanson (C), Rollag (LG) and John Piekarski (LT) are penciled in as starters for a group that Infanger said is the most physically imposing group he has had at Osakis.

“This is the strongest offensive line I’ve had and the deepest,” he said. “We’ve got eight guys that I feel really good about, could play any of the five line positions now. I think the biggest thing is the strength. We’re inexperienced there. We’ve got three guys back from last year, but we’re filling two new guys in who don’t have any varsity experience on the line. The nice thing is they’re stronger and probably in a little bit better shape and bigger than the guys they are replacing. We like to think we’ll be stronger as a unit.”

* Taking the snaps under center will be first-year starting quarterback Jordan Frederick. The junior is no stranger to big situations after pitching atop the Osakis baseball team’s starting rotation for the past couple seasons. That should make the pressure he’ll feel stepping into his new role as this team’s quarterback a little easier to handle.

 

Junior quarterback Jordan Frederick dropped back to pass during an Osakis practice on Monday morning. (Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press)

“With Jordan coming in, the first thing we see right off the bat is he’s very confident for a junior quarterback who’s never taken the field before,” Infanger said. “He’s got control in the huddle. He seems to be a smart kid. He’s learning our offense very quickly, taking his fakes and his responsibilities very seriously, and he runs the ball well too for a QB. We’ve got four threats to run the ball on any given play.”

* Infanger believes Frederick will allow this team to hit a few more big plays in the passing game this season, but there’s no doubt Osakis will once again be a team built on running the football.

The combination of a strong offensive line and the return of some talented backs has this team very optimistic about its ability to move the ball on the ground. Thorstad will lead that group of backs as he returns after a breakout junior season alongside senior fullback Mitch Herzog.

Junior slotback Drew Fearing and senior fullback Hunter Johnson will be asked to help make up for the loss of Herzog and Marty Walsh on an offense that relies on multiple backs to move the football.

“I’ll have to step up,” Thorstad said of becoming a feature back this season. “Mitch, he was the one I looked up to last year. This year, I have to step up and be the leader for Hunter as one of the other main backs.”

*A player that the Osakis coaching staff is watching carefully in camp is senior Ky Zimmel as he works his way back from an ACL tear he suffered in basketball this past season.

Senior Ky Zimmel adjusted his uniform around the knee brace that he wears as he comes back from a torn ACL he suffered during basketball season last winter. (Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press)

“Ky coming off that knee injury, we were worried about him a little bit,” Infanger said. “We want to keep him healthy because he’s such a big part of what we do on offense, defense and special teams. It’s his senior year and he doesn’t want to miss anything, so he’s out there on every play giving it everything he’s got.”

If healthy, they believe he can be a guy who can make opposing teams pay for stacking the box in an attempt to stop the run.

“We expect him to be a big play threat this year,” Infanger said. “He goes up and gets the ball really nicely. He’s a tall athletic kid, a really good receiver for a junior quarterback like Jordan to have. We feel like we can put Ky is some situations where he can be isolated on one defender, and Jordan, there’s not too much pressure on him to make a great throw because Ky’s going to help out and make a lot of plays for him.”

Facing reality helps turn around Alexandria’s season

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Maybe the biggest reason for the Alexandria football team’s turnaround in the last three weeks has stemmed from admitting a mistake early in the year.

The Cardinal coaching staff came into the season believing they could rely on an offensive scheme that produced positive results in the past. In 2009, Alexandria was explosive running the Wing-T offense out of its shotgun formation.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Senior Gideon Burnham ran for the sideline as one of his linemen finished off a block against Sauk Rapids on Tuesday night. Burnham is one of this team's seniors who have the Cardinals playing their best football heading into the section semifinals.

It was a scheme that relied on guys to be good in space. Players like Parker Giroux and Mark Whiting, whose specialty was making defenders miss and going up and getting the ball, excelled at it.

“[It required] not only our skill position players being good in space,” head coach Mike Empting said, “but also when you run an offense that we have run in the past, you have to have offensive linemen who are good in space too because they’re out there pulling.”

Alexandria thought it would take time to get a new group of players accustomed to that style this year. Three weeks into the season, the coaches realized it just wasn’t a style that would ever fit the personnel on this particular team.

“The type of offense that we were running, you need players who are great in space, long, a go-get-it receiver like we had in Mark [Whiting]. We just didn’t fit that this year. I thought we could at the beginning of the season. That’s why we spent the time we did working on that. That’s why we opened the season the way we did.”

The Cardinals struggled to get much of anything going on offense as a result. They went 0-3 during that stretch and failed to score an offensive touchdown during the first two games.

Empting decided it was time to make a change midway through a 28-14 loss to Fergus Falls in week three. Senior quarterback Logan Serum took most of his snaps under center in the second half that night as Alexandria went to tighter packages and ran more of a traditional downhill, power running game.

“We were fortunate that this package has always been in,” Empting said. “We’ve always had a Tight-T…last year, even when we had Rocori for our quarterfinal game when the wind was blowing and all that stuff, the fact that we were able to go under center and run some plays from there made us more effective. So this is something we’ve always had in, we just had to expand it.”

The results have been exactly what the coaches were looking for. Alexandria has gone 4-2 since making the switch, with it’s only losses coming against 10th-ranked Rocori and third-ranked Bemidji. The Cardinals have gotten a little better every week. They put up a season-high 30 points in the regular-season finale against Moorhead last Wednesday.

They then surpassed that with a dominant performance against Sauk Rapids last night. Alexandria ran for more than 300 yards against the Storm in a 42-16 win in the Section 8AAAA opener. Steffen Morical ran for 247 yards on 29 carries and had his second straight four-touchdown game on a night when his linemen dominated at the line of scrimmage.

Photo by Eric Morken/Echo Press: Alexandria's Steffen Morical dragged a couple Sauk Rapids defenders with him for a few additional yards in the playoff opener on Tuesday night. Morical has eight touchdowns in the last two games and is the ideal fit for the Cardinals new approach on offense.

“Defenses know we’re going to run the ball,” Morical said. “To be able to run the ball on a defense when they know we’re going to run the ball about 95 percent of the time, our offensive line keeps driving guys back and keep getting solid blocks. We’re getting solid holes. Really, it’s just our backs making one cut, and it should be five yards every time the way our offensive line has been blocking.”

It’s a group of linemen that Empting feels has benefitted from both experience and the switch made on offense. Jesse Hacker and Everett Fandrich returned with the most experience at the varsity level up front. The new additions have grown with every game. The new schemes also don’t require them to work in space as much and hold their blocks like they had to when the Cardinals were running out of the shotgun.

The Alexandria backfield has taken off with the improvement up front. Brock Wood and Gideon Burnham provide strong second and third options behind Morical, who has established himself as this team’s primary back down the stretch. At 5’9,” 177 pounds, Morical plays much bigger than his listed measurables. He relishes the chance to finish off runs by going through guys instead of around them once he gets into the secondary.

The change on offense has allowed the Cardinals to play to their strengths. Empting’s only regret is that he didn’t see it sooner.

“The hardest part of doing that is looking back and saying, ‘goll, we spent so much time implementing what we had in before, teaching kids, and seeing that go by the wayside,” he said. “That was tough. But at the same time, as coaches, we had to sit down and decide, well do we want to keep trying to beat our heads against the wall or do we want to put our kids in the best position to be successful.

“The bottom line is that’s what it’s about. I can’t send a team out there if I don’t feel like we’re putting them in the best possible position to be successful. So we had to – no matter what we felt about it or how much time we had into it. That didn’t fit our personnel.”