Undefeated teams will clash and the 1A District 4 championship will likely be decided when #1 (1A) Grundy Center travels to #6 (1A) South Hardin Friday.
The Spartans (5-0, 2-0 1A-4) will enter with the momentum of two blowout wins in district play, and will look for continued balance on offense, led by junior quarterback Judd Jirovsky. He’s completed 86 percent of passes with 12 touchdowns and no interceptions. Head Coach Travis Zajac says his team will be ready for the big-game atmosphere.
“They’re playing good football and we know it’s going to be a playoff environment, playoff-like atmosphere over there,” Zajac says. “They’re going to be really excited and they should be. It’s a good thing for their team, their school, their community. But we like to think we play pretty good football that travels well. So we can’t wait to get on the bus and go over there and play those guys. Coach Eller will have them ready to go. Our guys will be ready to go. It should be a great high school football game.”
South Hardin (5-0, 2-0 1A-4) enters with a dominant ground game led by senior Jaxson Drury, who has scored 12 touchdowns on an average of 144 yards per game. The Tigers have been balanced with a passing game led by quarterback Peyton Welch, who owns the district’s lead in passing touchdowns with 13.
“It’s going to be who’s stopping their run game and keeping the quarterback under control,” South Hardin coach Nick Eller says. “They’ve a really good quarterback, good thrower, good runner. Got to do our best to just kind of contain him and not let him just kill us in either aspect, running or passing. Got to really slow down Tiernan Vokes, really nice tight end receiver type guy, a college type player I believe. So just really do our best on that side of the ball. We’ve got to control the game with our running game and with our mixing our pass and our play action in. Nothing they’re not going to know and nothing we’re probably not going to know with them either. It’s just going to come down to who plays the most sound, disciplined football, and that’ll be the challenge for both teams I’m guessing.”
Both teams have scored 40 or more points in each district game so far.
Grundy Center has won six straight in the series. The kickoff will be at 7:00 p.m.
