The North Butler football team will wrap its two game road trip and look to track down an upset in Class A District 2 as they visit first place Nashua-Plainfield on Friday.
North Butler (3-3, 1-3 A-3) lost 28-6 at North Tama in district play last week. The Bearcats will look to spark their offense behind their run game (1,031 yards this season) after being limited to 14 points or less in three of four district games. A trio of backs pace the Bearcats run game with Tucker Pecha with 288 yards, Jax Thorne with 286 yards and Pryor Wiederkehr with 278 yards this season.
Nashua-Plainfield (5-1, 4-0 A-3) held on for a 27-21 win at South Winneshiek in district play last week. The Huskies have a top rushing offense in Class A with 1,821 yards (third most). The Huskies challenge defenses in the trenches with two backs with over 500 yards this season, including Aidan Gelner with 558 yards and nine touchdowns and Eli Kalainoff with 519 rushing yards and five touchdowns.
North Butler Head Coach Jordan Vanderloop on containing the Huskies strong running game and executing when the Bearcats have the ball.
“Focused mentally and physically prepared ready to play,” says Vanderloop. “Up front the defensive line, we need to make sure we’re keeping them fresh. We need to make sure we rotate through and just finishing wrapping up, taking them to the ground, not letting them slide through our fingers. Having our backs read it and go, trusting our instincts to go and make a play. Taking what we can get, hitting the hole and get as many yards as we can and throwing the ball to whoever’s open underneath. We just need to take the yards that we can get and then capitalize on the plays that we have.”
Nashua-Plainfield has won two straight in the series including a 26-12 win in Greene last year.
Kickoff is at 7:00 p.m. in Nashua.
