Tigers victorious in Leola

The Ipswich/Edmunds Central high school football cooperative got back into the win column with a huge 44-20 Lake Region Conference league victory over North Border last Friday in Leola.

The convincing win improved the Tigers' record to 4-1 and they are currently 3-1 in league play. Another league rival, Faulkton Area was to have visited Ipswich on Friday, Oct. 2 to cap both Ipswich's and Edmunds Central's respective homecoming weeks. (The Trojans are coached by IHS graduate Shayne Geditz.) Their win-loss mark was currently 2-3 after coming off their bye week. Just prior to that they had actually sustained a 44-20 homecoming setback themselves to North Border in Faulkton. But according to Tiger coach Brian Hogie that game with Faulkton has now been cancelled because of Faulkton's number of players who were currently in covid-19 quarantine.

In the meantime, the highlights against North Border? Ipswich/EC amassed 342 rushing yards and 168 through the air. "Yes, we were able to stay balanced most of the game," said Hogie. "Also a key for us was slowing down Isaac Sumption, which the boys did a great job of doing." But he was still able to total 81 ground yards and score two touchdowns. The remaining NB TD was from Will Nordine who accumulated 98 rushing yards, just shy of 100.

But the Tigers countered with a pair of 100-yard plus rushers -- Luke Peterson with 144 yards on 11 carries and Carson Gohl with 138 yards on 23 tries. They each included a touchdown run, as did sophomore quarterback Ian Beyers. (He finished with 19 rushing yards and Tyler Hettich contributed the remaining 41 ground yards.) Ian Beyers also passed for a pair of touchdowns to Luke Peterson and Josh McQuarie to spearhead I/EC's offensive attack. He was 10 of 18 for 140 of those aerial yards with one interception. McQuarie added one completion in as many tries for 28 yards, a throw to Ian Beyers. Ty Kadlec was the I/EC leading receiver with 60 yards on two grabs and McQuarie was next with three catches for 57 yards.

Defensively, the Tigers accumulated 54 tackles, 34 solos and 20 assisted, led by Luke Peterson with seven solo efforts and four assists and McQuarie next with 10 total tackles (five of each). Peterson also contributed a Titan fumble recovery TD.

Ipswich/Edmunds Central led at each respective quarter stop - 8-6, 24-12 and 32-20 and got a couple of highly desireable insurance TDs in the final quarter.