Mustangs kick off season at Cherryvale

After two weeks of “pounding on each other” in practice, Iola High’s Mustangs are champing at the bit to line up against somebody else on the football field.
Iola gets its chance Friday evening, when the defending Pioneer League champions open the 2013 season at Cherryvale.
“The kids are excited about it,” Iola head coach Doug Kerr said. “Getting 10 new kids out for football who didn’t play last year tells me there’s some excitement around school for this team.”
A repeat of the game conditions from a year ago is unlikely, played in a driving rainstorm. Iola took advantage, forcing 12 Cherryvale fumbles in a 22-0 win. Forecasts for Friday are for hot, dry conditions.
Weather aside, Kerr isn’t sure how much stock can be taken from last year’s matchup, anyway.
Going off of tape from Cherryvale’s preseason scrimmage, Kerr noted the Chargers have largely eschewed the spread offense they deployed in 2012.
“It looks like they’re going with a brand new system,” he said. “They’ve switched to a flex-bone offense,” with an added emphasis on option running instead.
“That’s a challenge because we felt pretty good against the spread,” Kerr said. “They’ll probably be a little bigger than we are on the line, but we should match up well with them athletically.”
Cherryvale head coach Harry Hester said the Chargers changed offensive philosophies not long after playing Iola last fall.
“I’ve always been a spread coach, but in order to be successful at our level, you have to go with your strength,” Hester said.
Cherryvale’s strength this fall lies in its offensive backfield.
Seniors Triston Thornton and Cody Hockett — a former offensive lineman — will key Cherryvale’s rushing attack.
“Both have played quite a bit since they were sophomores,” Hester said. “We can look to them for their leadership on offense and defense.”

IOLA, TOO, may focus more on the running game, thanks to a stable of talented running backs led by seniors Jacob Rhoads and John Whitworth.
Rhoads will get the start, “although you’ll probably see six or seven guys carry the ball,” Kerr said. “A lot of these kids play defense, too, and we don’t want to wear them out, so we’re going to rotate guys in and out quite a bit.”
With temperatures forecast in the low 90s Friday, Kerr has preached hydration in practice.
“Hydration isn’t something you can just focus on during the game,” he said. “You have to stay hydrated in practice, at school during the day, all the time. The kids have been consuming large amounts of water all through practice.”

THE KEY for Cherryvale will be to match up against Iola’s physical play, Hester said.
“We were only down 2-0 at halftime against those guys last year, but they wore us down in the second half,” he said. “We lost a couple of kids to injuries in that game, who played both ways. We’re as healthy now as we’ve been in a while.”
Cherryvale also returns 11 players who started at one point or another on offense from 2012, and seven starting defenders.
Iola’s key will be to limit mistakes, Kerr said.
“The biggest thing for us is to not get too worked up in a game that’s not a league or a district game for us,” Kerr said. “We’d like to be 1-0, but we also need to stay focused. If we take care of things we can control and not try to do too much, we’ll be fine.”