Groton Area finished off its regular season with a 28-0 shutout over rival Aberdeen Roncalli on Friday and will travel to Winner on Thursday to open the Class 11B playoffs in a 6 p.m. contest.
“We are excited to be in the playoffs and get a match-up against a good football team in Winner,” said GA boss Jordan Carson. “We’ve gotten a lot better as the year has gone on and our guys are excited to go stand toe-to-toe with a solid Winner team. We have a lot of similarities in style of play and it’s going to come down to how well we can run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense.”
The two clubs have played one common opponent this season in Miller/Highmore-Harrold. The Tigers posted a 21-0 win and Winner rolled to a 60-6 victory. Groton Area takes a 4-4 record into the postseason and is the 13th seed. Winner stands at 7-1 and is seeded fourth with its only loss to second seed and unbeaten St. Thomas More 35-20.
The winner of Thursday’s playoff game will meet the winner between #5 Deuel (6-2) and #12 Beresford (4-4) on Thursday, Oct. 29.
In the regular season finale Groton Area led 7-0 at halftime on a one-yard Asher Johnson run and the first of four Ryder Schwan PAT kicks. Asher found Anthon Tracy with a 20-yard scoring strike with 2:17 left in the third period for a 14-0 margin after three quarters.
Then the Tigers scored twice in just 30 seconds late in the final stanza to put the game away. Ryder Schelle rumbled 39 yards to paydirt with 3:43 remaining in the contest, and 30 seconds later Tracy found the end zone again, this time on a 13-yard scamper.
“We knew that we were going to try and establish a run game early on and had a couple different formations we were going to hit the ground game with, and they had a solid defensive plan for that. But trying to establish a strong run presence opened up a couple passing plays for us late in the third quarter that we capitalized on. Then we were able to find a couple bigger run lanes later in the fourth quarter to seal the game for us. We knew going into this game that it wasn’t going to be easy. They came out ready to play and we were in a dog fight.”
GA piled up 219 yards rushing behind Johnson’s 76, Tracy’s 45, and Schelle’s 31 and added 64 via the airways with Tracy grabbing three for 35 yards and TC Schuster a couple for 29. Roncalli managed just 10 yards on the ground and 76 passing as the Tigers won the total yardage battle 283-86.
Johnson also had a big game on the defensive side of the ball with 10 tackles and a pass interception. Schelle had eight stops and Layne Johnson six tackles, a fumble recovery, and forced fumble.
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