East Mills knocks off Stanton

STANTON—The East Mills Wolverines defeated the Stanton Vikings on Friday night in the first 8-man District 8 game, 48-12.

Luke Schafer had a big game for East Mills as he completed 17-of-25 passes for 447 yards and seven touchdowns. Schafer threw two touchdown passes in the second half to put the game out of reach and start the continuous clock.

“I think it’s a really big confidence builder, this is how we want to play, we haven’t played a full game yet,” Schafer said.

Schafer spread the ball around; as he completed at least one pass to seven different receivers.

“Luke Schafer’s a pretty good quarterback, he’s got some good receivers,” Stanton Head Coach Jake Nimrod said. “They have different ways that they can hurt you and I think they used about all of their weapons.”

Charlie Ruff caught two touchdown passes, including a 55 yarder, as he finished with 108 yards receiving.

Daniel Duysen also had two touchdown catches as he finished with four catches for 80 yards.

Kyle Steiner, Kaleb Richter and Brandon Clemmons each caught a touchdown pass.

East Mills Head Coach Kevin Schafer said he was surprised by the outcome, adding he thought the Wolverines speed and depth wore down the Vikings.

“We handled their physicalness much better than we did a year ago,” Schafer said.

Defensively, Caleb Barney led East Mills with 17 tackles, while Duysen had 16.

Greg Focht had both of Stanton’s touchdowns. Focht caught a 36 yard pass for a score and ran one in from 56 yards.

Austin Becthold led the Vikings in tackles with seven.

“We ran into a team in East Mills that has a lot of athleticism and a lot of speed and they used it well,” Nimrod said.

Nimrod knew East Mills was going to come to play.

“I think we were hoping to run the ball pretty effectively and try to keep their offense on the sideline a little bit and we did that to some extent, but they also did a good job in making some adjustments,” Nimrod said.

East Mills is now 3-0 (1-0 in district) for the season. Stanton is 2-1 (0-1 in district) this season.

The Wolverines will be home this Friday night to take on the Sidney Cowboys.

The Vikings will be on the road to face the Nishnabotna Warriors.