After two-straight losses at home, the Brainerd Warriors head travel to Moorhead Thursday, Nov. 5, for their toughest test yet.
The Moorhead Spuds are the reigning Section 8-5A champs and are the No. 3 ranked team in Class 5A, according to The Associated Press.
Warriors head coach Jason Freed’s message to his team this week stays the same. Get better each day.
“I think we’ve had a good week of practice,” he said. “We talked to the kids about goal setting and we talked about how we need to be setting specific goals in practice. We’ve actually seen the kids evaluate themselves and raise their level of play and preparation because of that.”
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Moorhead enters the game coming off a 21-0 win over Rogers.
The Spuds feature a high-powered offense. They have scored 42 points or more in all but one game and have scored 56 points in two games.
“The big thing is to not take anything for granted,” Spuds head coach Kevin Feeney said. “That’s kind of the theme for the year right now. Our goal is to just continue to get better and find a way to improve individually. Nobody cares what happens in the past, it’s about moving forward.”
Feeney is pleased with how his team has responded to the pressures of being defending section champions and a top three team in the class.
“We got a very mature group and a very experienced group coming off of last year,” he said. “It took us awhile last year to get going, but we were playing some pretty good football by the end of last year. Then that really propelled us to having a great offseason. Our kids really prepared like they were going to be playing.”
Senior quarterback and University of North Dakota commit Trey Feeney leads the Spuds offense. In four games he has thrown for 1,146 yards and 19 touchdowns.
It helps that Feeney has twin wide receivers Brady and Blake Walthall to throw to. Brady Walthall has caught 33 balls for 543 yards and seven touchdowns and Blake Walthall has 14 receptions for 240 yards and six touchdowns.
“It took us a while to develop that identity,” Kevin Feeney said of his passing attack. “That’s where we feel like we can have success. We also feel we can have success running. We got to find ways as coaches to get explosive players in space. Having twin receivers, it’s been all season who is the other team going to target and then we’ve gone elsewhere. Trey has done a good job of dissecting what the defenses are doing and just trying to get the ball to our playmakers.”
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Freed knows it will be a challenge to prepare for the passing attack of the Spuds.
“It’s going to pose a great challenge this week,” Freed said. “It’s probably safe to say that Moorhead is one of the top teams in (Class) 5A without a doubt. They’ve got a lot of talent in a lot of places. All of their offense skills guys are very good football players. We need to try to eliminate big plays and have Moorhead consistently move downfield.”
The goal is for Brainerd to get a pass rush Thursday.
“We have to find a way to get the quarterback a little bit out of rhythm if we can,” Freed said. “Anytime you see a passing attack you have to find a way to get it off balance.”
Last season, Moorhead and Brainerd played to a close, low scoring game which saw the Spuds squeak away with a 14-13 win at Adamson Field.
Although Freed thinks last year’s game could give them a little confidence heading in, he knows the Spuds were a different team after that game.
“Last year they were more of a 50-50 run-pass team,” Freed said. “Now they are more of an 85 to 90 pass-run team. For us I think there is a confidence aspect of seeing what we did last year, but also understanding that they are a different team then they were a year ago.”
Defensively, Moorhead has yet to allow more than 12 points in a game this season, including two shutouts.
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“We are really pleased with the discipline of our defense,” Kevin Feeney said. “We played a variety of styles the first few weeks. We feel our speed gives us a big advantage on the whole defense. We have some defensive lineman that can go some great things and our linebackers are very aggressive. We have been fortunate to create some turnovers, but overall we are playing confident.”
Brainerd relies on the run to set up the pass and the hope is to have long drives to keep Moorhead’s explosive offense off the field.
“It would be great this game to get some real consistent time consuming drives,” Freed said. “Sometimes your offense is your best defense, and so that’s definitely something we’ve talked about. With that being said Moorhead has one of the best defenses statistically in Class 5A, so we have a major challenge ahead of us.”
Kevin Feeney is excited to play Brainerd, which is a game he called a big rivalry for them. He’s excited for his Spuds to play at home after two straight games on the road.
“We are expecting a dogfight,” Kevin Feeney said. “I look at them as a tradition rich program that’s had a ton of success and I told our kids at the beginning of this week that Brainerd was the example and what we wanted to be when I first got here. I don’t think that’s changed.”
Brainerd Warriors (1-2)
Offense
QB: 16-Nathaniel Staehling, 12-Isaiah Windorski
RB: 20-Caden Schoeppner, 45-Gabe Wagner, 38-Trevor Jechorak
WR: 7-Jacob Smith, 21-Brandt Patton, 14-Simon Foss, 2-Jed Klang, 8-Matt Huesmann, 15-Cole Beyer, 11-Ethan Windorski
TE: 88-Andrew Albright, 84-Mitchell Degen, 18-RJ Campbell
OL: 51-Ethan Strong, 58-Aden Crabb, 60-Dominik Waytashek, 57-Carter Springer, 66-Caden Jager, 67-Jacob Borgstrom, 72-Nolan Reynolds, 76-Elijah Hanson, 77-Elijah Rock
Defense
DL: 5-Andrew Thielke, 79-Chandler DeRosier, 74-Ryan Cook, 53-Grant Gardiepy, 54-Riley DeRosier, 42-Chase Bentler, 41-Eli Biggs, 55-Max Olson, 75-DeShawn Brown, 92-Delon Kosloski, 64-Dalton Barrett, 74-Cole Larkin
LB: 40-Forrest Gibson, 50-Jacob Holm, 25-Cam Langerman, 30-Kouper Seidl, 52-Brady Toensing, 60-Dylan Wgeishofski, 44-Dante Bernal, 56-Jonas Ewald
DB: 10-Harry Carlson, 21-Brandt Patton, 24-Jack Lundstrom, 22-Aden Extrand, 35-Aaron Stark, 82-Ethan Olson, 28-Zach Horn, 27-Dawon Piepho, 47-Alex Helmin, 26-Gavin Schwen, 23-Jaiden McLanahan, 31-Ethan Derosier
Special Teams
K: 17-Aiden Brown, 86-Jeremy Duff
P: 16-Nathaniel Staehling, 2-Jed Klang
Returners: 20-Caden Schoeppner, 21-Brandt Patton
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Moorhead Spuds (4-0)
Offense
QB: 3-Trey Feeney
RB: 15-George Nyanforth, 11-Jack Teiken
WR/TE: 8-Blake Walthall, 9-Brady Walthall, 16-Michael Haugo
OL: 59-Max Soeth, 58-Keaton Miosek, Jackson Young, 72-Jayden Coley, 55-Carter Brooks
Defense
DL: 11-Jack Teiken, 2-Thomas Myers, 68-Christian Vega, 56-Jack Newcomb
LB: 32-Austin Altepeter, 31-Gulio Angotti, 35-Jackson Gotta
CB: 5-Jamal Dixon, 21-Cadin Berg
S: 28-Kenana Wendt, 1-Jacqui Fitzpatrick
Special Teams
K/P: 6-Saif Allawi
Warriors Schedule
Regular Season
Oct. 9, at Cambridge-Isanti — canceled
Oct. 17, at St. Cloud Apollo 6 p.m. — won 35-30
Oct. 23, hosts Alexandria 7 p.m. — lost 49-14
Oct. 30, hosts Bemidji 7 p.m. — lost 35-13
Nov. 5, at Moorhead 7 p.m.
Nov. 12, hosts Sartell 7 p.m.
Section 8-5A Playoffs
Nov. 17, opening round 7 p.m.
Nov. 21, semifinals 2 p.m.
Nov. 27, finals 7 p.m.
North Central Red Subdistrict
Subdistrict Records
Moorhead 4-0 (2-0), Bemidji 3-1 (1-0), Alexandria 2-2 (1-2), Sartell 2-2 (1-2), Brainerd 1-2 (0-2), Sauk Rapids 1-3 (1-0), St. Cloud Tech 0-2 (0-2)
Week Three Results results
Bemidji 35, Brainerd 13
Sartell 49, Alexandria 29
Moorhead 21, Rogers 0
Sauk Rapids 28, St. Cloud Tech 0
Week Four games
Brainerd at Moorhead
Alexandria at Bemidji
St. Cloud Tech at Sartell
Sauk Rapids at Rogers
Team Stats
Brainerd
Rushing: 118-427
Passing: 20-49-5-198
Total Offense: 167-625
Opponents
Rushing: 118-603
Passing: 30-53-2-527
Total Offense: 171-1,130
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Brainerd at Moorhead
When: 7 p.m.
Where: at Moorhead High School
Last result: Moorhead won 14-13 in 2019.
The series: Tied 16-16.
Twitter: @the_rad34
Radio: KLIZ-AM (1380)
Web Stream: www.kliz.com.
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