The Nebraska 8 man football playoffs in classes D1 and D2 begin today across the state. South Loup is the #8 seed on the west side of the Class D1 bracket and will host Perkins County in Arnold today. Both teams are 6-2 and met earlier in the season with Perkins County handing South Loup one of its two losses this season. South Loup head coach Mat Jagelar visited with KCNI/KBBN sports this week about the rematch.
“It’s going to be a tough game. They kind of took it to us in the first matchup. We missed some opportunities to have a chance at that game. The kids are realizing that We’re going to try a few things. Try to get them out of their base defense. Show them some things they haven’t seen. The key comes down to if we can stop their run. It’s just a power run, I formation right at you. We did a decent job the first time around so we’re hoping we can do that again. Then just take care of every other phase of the game. The first game we gave up an opening kickoff return. We can’t start in the hole. We’re working hard on all phases of the game to try to control it and see what happens.”
Today’s game between South Loup and Perkins County will be broadcast on KBBN 95.3 FM and kbbn.com. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.
MAT JAGELAR INTERVIEW
Sandhills Valley will travel to Pleasanton today in the opening round of the D1 playoffs today. The sports co-op between Stapleton and McPherson County finished the regular season at 3-5 and are the #15 seed in the D1 west bracket. Pleasanton is the #2 seed and finished the regular season undefeated at 8-0. The teams met each other last week to conclude the regular season with Pleasanton winning 62-20.
Sandhills/Thedford will begin defense of their 2023 Class D2 state championship when they host Maxwell at Thedford in the opening round of the D2 state playoffs. The Knights rolled through the regular season 8-0 and are averaging 64 points per game. Maxwell is 4-4. The two met back on September 27th with S/T winning 61-14. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.
Mullen finished the regular season at 6-2 and will host 4-4 Axtell today in the opening round of the D2 playoffs. This will be the first meeting of the season between the two. Kickoff is scheduled for 5:30 mountain time in Mullen.
Twin Loup is in the round of 32 for the Class D2 state playoffs. The Wolves finished the regular season at 3-5 and will face the top seed on the west side of the bracket, Loomis. The game is scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. at Loomis.
After tonight, the sixteen first round winning teams will be re-seeded 1 through 16 on a statewide bracket using the regular season point system and point system tie breaker.
Ansley/Litchfield and SEM will conclude their regular seasons today in six man football. Ansley/Litchfield has won five in a row and will look to strengthen their playoff resume’ today when they play at 6-1 Stuart. SEM will look to conclude another undefeated regular season when they play at 5-2 Wallace. The six man football playoffs begin next week.
