is kind of the way ….

is kind of the way it is with all good eightman teams. Their speed allows them to get big plays. That’s a concern in really eliminating that.”

This figures to be a good matchup of speed against speed. Thorp had a size advantage with its offensive line, but Gilman’s defensive line might be quicker.

A couple of big plays loomed large in last year’s thriller. Hanson had an early 66-yard touchdown run. The Cardinals hit on a 61-yard completion on their 97yard game-winning drive in the final moments to set up the final pass from Aiden Rosemeyer to Sutton.

“The first guy making the tackle is going to be a big deal Friday night and having good leverage when they want to do their stuff to the outside or run their option,” Robin Rosemeyer said. “They’ll run a little bit of option out of that spread when Hanson wants to get wide. With good leverage we can get good angles to our tackles.”

Rosemeyer expects Thorp will load the box trying to take away Gilman’s run game. That won’t stop the Pirates from wanting to establish the run behind senior Troy Duellman (523 yards and 13 touchdowns on just 44 carries) and junior quarterback Dawson Krizan (402 yards on just 32 carries).

“They loaded it last year, and we still had some success running against it,” Rosemeyer said. “I think it’s going to be the same thing but then we have to be able to spread them out too and use some of our playmakers in a different way.”

Only one of Gilman’s games thus far has been in doubt much beyond the first quarter. That was a 28-6 win over Owen-Withee two weeks ago. The Pirates have had great success with defense and special teams giving them good field position in most of their games, which makes their modest offensive numbers deceiving.

Owen-Withee is hoping for a Thorp win and then will hope to beat Thorp next week to create a three-way tie atop the league standings. Gilman and Thorp, of course, would prefer to win out and win it all for themselves.

“Thorp is in a spot where maybe it can afford one more loss to make the playoffs,” Rosemeyer said. “They still have Owen-Withee next week. They’re in a spot where they can’t lose twice. They’re going to bring it and we have to be able to match that intensity and urgency that they’re going to bring. Anytime you can play for a piece of the conference championship at your place you obviously expect your kids to play well and play hard and hopefully we can do that Friday night. It will definitely be a good challenge.”