Rebels flee past Kee, 62-30

“We executed pretty much everything we wanted to do offensively,” G-R head coach John Olson said. “Very efficient, I think we have the least amount of offensive plays of 8-man teams in the whole state, kinda strange from that standpoint.”

G-R (8-1) will learn its second-round opponent on Saturday morning. Kee bows out at 5-4.

Only one of G-R’s scoring drives went longer than five plays and twice a Rebel scoring drive was as simple as quarterback Drew Eilers getting some room to run on a 63-yard score in the first half and a 41-yard scamper in the fourth quarter. Those were two of Eilers’ five rushing touchdowns on Friday; the 6-foot-3 senior also threw for two scores.

“We’ve got great coaches putting in great schemes for us,” Eilers said. “O-line is busting their butts, receivers are all really fast dudes and play hard. … I’m just running hard with the ball and trying to get to the end zone.”

Kee’s first three drives were productive, but resulted in zero points as G-R’s defense bent but refused to break. Trevor Mathern had a couple of pass break-ups on fourth-down pass attempts to help put the ball back in the hands of the powerful Rebel offense.

“It can be frustrating for guys to play a defense where they may be giving up anywhere from two to eight yards a play at a time, but those long drives wore [Kee] out more than it wore us out,” Olson said. “We could have blitzed a bunch, played more man to man, maybe would’ve got a pick or two more, but they probably get two more touchdowns out of the deal, too. We’re just going to hang our hat on playing really solid defense the whole time.”

Kee quarterback Dalton Mudderman didn’t make it easy on the Rebel defense, dropping back and then using his agility to evade Rebel tacklers several times on Friday night, accounting for three passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown.

“He’s really fast,” Eilers said. “The coaches were just telling us not to do any arm tackles since he’s a hard guy to bring down. And I think toward the end of the game, we started slow playing it just to see where he was going and then attack from there, maybe try to blitz a couple times to keep him off-balance.”

Olson credited Dreyson Morgan and Bennett Sieh for stepping up to fill in for regular defensive starter Austin Mathern in their efforts to quell the Hawk passing attack.

“They don’t really have that experience playing against a team that passes it like them,” Olson said. “They did a great job and our defensive line deserves a lot of credit, too.”

The Hawks were as close as 42-30 in the fourth quarter but just couldn’t hold back the Rebel offense to make the hosts sweat, and a couple of late turnovers helped G-R put the first-round battle to rest.

Hudson Clark caught a touchdown pass from Eilers and ran in another score in the second half. Mathern caught the other Eilers touchdown pass and Treyvon Herron added a 16-yard touchdown run for the final score of the game.

The Rebels move on to the Round of 16.

“We just need to find out what we’re best at, hang our hat on that, and the things we’re weak at, let’s just get a little better in those areas,” Olson said of preparing for next week. “Defensively it’s always about adjustments. We saw a team tonight throw it 50 times and next week we might see a team running it 50 times. We’ll hone in on it in practice to get it done right.”