GETTYSBURG – When the Class 9B championship football game kicks off at 10 this morning, it will pit two squads who are peaking at the right time of the season.
Both Dell Rapids St. Mary (7-3) and Potter County (10-2) grabbed road victories in the semifinals to advance to the title game at the DakotaDome in Vermillion. DRSM has won three straight games and six of its last seven, while the Battlers have won three straight contests.
When asked if his team was playing the best that it’s played all year, Potter County coach Vern Smith responded, “For the most part, yes. I think we’re playing more balanced. We still have things we need to clean up. We’re figuring out what works for us and going to it more often, and getting more comfortable with what we’re doing.”
In last week’s win over Faulkton that avenged a regular-season loss, the Battlers appeared to get stronger as the game wore on. Smith said that has been a pattern with his team this season.
“It’s been our MO so to speak. We’ve started out some of the games a little slow and as we get more comfortable with what we’re doing and what the other team feels like playing against us, we gain confidence and we start playing better and more consistent,” Smith said.
The Battlers, who won a state championship in 2013, will face a Dell Rapid St. Mary team that is also on the rise. The Cardinals grabbed a quarterfinal road victory before knocking off top-seeded Avon on the road last week. DRSM was runner-up in last year’s state championship contest.
“They have a lot of players with experience in the Dome,” Smith said. “We know that they’ve been playing really well lately. They have a good mix of size and speed. They do things differently enough that we have to be prepared to adjust with that. We also know that right now that we’ve been playing good football and aggressive football, and that’s what we want to keep doing.”
Smith said the two teams feature a bit of different styles on offense.
He thinks a key to the game will be which one is able to disrupt the other.
“Whichever team can take the other one out of their rhythm is going to be a key factor,” Smith said. “I would classify us as a big-play team. I would somewhat classify them as a grind-it-out team. Because of the fact that they’re looking for the short plays and grinding out that way, sometimes big plays happen for them. Whereas we tend to look for the big play first and feed off that.”
The two teams last met on the gridiron in the early 2000s, according to Smith.
It promises to be a unique environment with both teams having red as a dominant color and also having a mid-morning kickoff.
Smith said his players will be focused on the game itself and not on the things surrounding the contest.
“Without having a whole lot of windows in the Dome, kids only know that there’s lights on. The focus has to be that this is football time,” Smith said. “For the fans and the parents and all that stuff, there’s a lot of hoopla and that going on. For us it has to business. The excitement part of it, that’s their fun; ours is the playing of the game.”
