The Groton Area football squad kicked off its season with a 21-0 shutout over Miller/Highmore-Harrold on Friday.
Coach Jordan Carson’s crew will host its home opener this Friday against Beresford, a 40-8 winner over Mount Vernon-Plankinton last week.
“We know we’re going to have to play well against Beresford,” stressed Carson. “They came out and took care of Mount Vernon-Plankinton. We will have to be ready to score a few points and step it up on defense to another level.”
The Tigers used a balanced attack, passing for 155 yards and rushing for 114 for a total of 269 in their opening win. Defensively, GA limited MHH to just 30 yards on the ground and 32 via the airways for a 62-yard total.
“I thought we were ready to play from the start of the game and executed our game plan,” said Carson. “We didn’t have a ton of mistakes, which is pretty good with a bunch of kids in their varsity debut, and I thought that we capitalized on the big play opportunities that we were looking for.”
The first of those big plays came from sophomore quarterback Asher Johnson. The signal-caller found paydirt on a 24-yard scamper and Ryder Schwan added the PAT kick for a 7-0 lead at the 2:30 mark of the opening quarter.
Johnson also had a hand in the Tigers’ other first half score, finding fellow sophomore Anthony Tracy on a 26-yard scoring toss and Schwan hit the PAT for a 14-0 lead at halftime. Then the Johnson-Tracy combo clicked for the final score in the third stanza, again on a 26-yard strike, and Schwan was a perfect 3-3 on the night kicking extra points for the final margin.
“I was most happy with the level of effort that our kids gave thoughout the whole night,” added Carson. “They were just relentless and tackled really well, something we worked really hard on for the first couple of weeks. Everybody also did a really good job of playing in the role they were given.
“We were able to consistently move the ball pretty well to start the game and tried to mix it up a little bit to keep them guessing as much as we could,” noted the Carson. “We did stall out a couple of times and had to rely on special teams to make some plays for us, too, and I thought we played fairly well in all phases of the game.”
Carson was also pleased with the “next man up” mentality that he has stressed in the preseason.
“Jordan Schwan had an early game ankle roll and Brody Lord came in at tight end and had a game-changing catch for us right down the middle of the field. When we have that next man up mentality I’m not surprised when good things happen in those situations.”
Johnson had a good night throwing the football, hitting 9-12 passes without an interception for 155 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He was also the Tigers leading rusher with 45 yards on 15 tries. Ryder Schelle added 8-26. Tracy was the top receiver, catching five balls for 73 yards and also carried the ball five times for 19.
On the defensive side of the ball Braeden Fliehs led the way with five stops and Gunner Hardy and Johnson had four each. Schwan had a pass interception.
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