It’s been 22 years since the Spirit Lake football program reached the playoffs, and following Friday night’s 27-9 defeat of Unity Christian, the Indians postseason drought is over. At 4-2 in district play, Spirit Lake is guaranteed of a spot beyond next week’s regular season finale. Luke Kabele powered his way to 161 yards rushing, with touchdown runs of 46 and 29 yards. Mitch Peschon threw a touchdown to Alex Dau to open the Spirit Lake scoring, then pushed the halftime lead to 18 with a short endzone run before half, part of a 143 yard night of offense for the senior. The Indians defense limited the Knights to 109 yards on the ground, ending a streak of three consecutive sub-100 yard performances. The last regular season game is next Friday at Sioux Center and live on KUOO.
Okoboji wrapped up the home portion of their schedule taking on Western Christian on Senior Night, but the Pioneers would ultimately fall 35-0. The game was tightly contested throughout, despite the Pioneers only obtaining 39 yards of offense. Bryson McCabe had 30 yards of total offense on nine carries and three receptions. Okoboji remains winless through eight games this season, and will travel to Sheldon in Week 9 to close out the season on Q102.
In other Class 2A action, Estherville-Lincoln Central upset Sioux Center 14-13, and Sheldon took care of business with a 27-7 defeat of Central Lyon/George-Little Rock on the road.
Emmetsburg pushed their perfect season to 7-0 behind a 51-14 thrashing of Alta-Aurelia in Class 1A, while Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn stayed on the EHawks heels with a 48-6 victory over South O’Brien. Emmetsburg and HMS will meet next week on Y100. Also, Sibley-Ocheyedan dropped to 3-3 in district play with a 35-0 loss to one-loss West Lyon, and Sioux Central escaped Pocahontas with an 8-6 win.
In 8-Man football, Harris-Lake Park won 56-28 on the road over Twin River Valley. The Wolves are now 3-5 overall and 2-4 in the district and play at Ruthven-Ayrshire in the season’s final week. Also, Graettinger-Terril shutout Corwith-Wesley-Luverne 47-0, and Armstrong-Ringsted moved one more step close to closing out another undefeated regular season with a 61-6 thumping of Ruthven-Ayrshire.
North of the border, Jackson County Central held Pipestone scorelass in 41-0 win, Fairmont defeated St. Peter 55-34 in a high scoring game, and Martin County West fell to Waterville-Elysian-Morristown, 48-16.
