'Jacket 11 has tough task against Patriots

HIBBING—The Hibbing High School football team might be on a two-game winning streak, but trying to make it three in a row won’t be a piece of cake.

That’s because the No. 4 rated team in Class 3A is coming to town today as Pequot Lakes invades Cheever Field in Dr. Ben Owens Stadium, beginning at 7 p.m. as the Bluejacket’ Homecoming opponent.

Hibbing coach Matt Anderson knows a lot about the Patriots, and they will push Hibbing to the limit.

.“They’re a quality team,” Anderson said. “They have good coaching. They have good kids. Our biggest challenge is to keep our composure, and see what we can do against them.

“We have confidence. We’ve had a great week of practice. The vibe of practice was confident. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t as bad as some of our practices leading up to our wins. I can only hope that we’re riding the right type of a wave. We have a challenge in front of us.”

Anderson said there’s no guarantees, but at the same time, his team has nothing to lose.

Anderson also knows that Pequot Lakes will try to throw the first punch of the game, so the Bluejackets wil have to withstand the challenge.

“If we do the things better than what we did against Pine City, there’s some things that we could have done better to make that score a little bit better,” Anderson said. “It’s being aggressive.

“It’s playing reactive football and not thinking football. That will help us out.”

Anderson the Patroits will run a plethora of schemes on the offensive side of the ball.

“They like to run Gun-T, Buck Sweep, Trap, a good Jet Sweep and they like to air it out,” Anderson said. “They are a multidimensional, solid football team. If the right people are looking in the right spots at the right time, we should do a decent job.

“Again, we have to honor a lot of the things that they do. They’ve been doing them well all year against a number of teams we will see and have seen. I want our kids to step up to the challenge and make it fun while we’re facing a high-caliber team.”

Every game, no matter what happens, should be fun, according to Anderson.

“I don’t want that pressure on them to where they crumble,” Anderson said. “I want them to accept the pressure and the nervousness and know that that’s a good thing, and they care because of that feeling.”

On offense, Hibbing will try to get its run game going.

“We are what we are. We run the ball hard,” Anderson said. “If we get a hat on a hat, and with a couple of new wrinkles in this week to attack them, we should attack them. In this type of game, you’re able to do that.

“I’d like to open up our passing game a little bit more, but at the same time, we have to rely on our laurels. We’re feeding Ian (Larrabee), Benny (Galli) and Joe (Marchetti) the rock. We also have a great quarterback battle going on. Both of them have done a great job this year.”

Even so, it all starts up front and well the Bluejacket’s offensive line controls the line of scrimmage.

“We have a young leader in Tucker Crowe, and we have a big-bodied senior in Jacob Petrich,” Anderson said. “It’s kind of nice to see them all gelling. We just can’t attack each other when the things that we know are going to happen, happen.

“We have to find ways to bounce back, and try to have a bend-but-don’t-break mentality. When things do go wrong, how do we adjust?”