Derick Hammes is in his first year as Rossville’s head coach, but he’s quickly learning how important the Silver Lake game is to the community and his players.
“I can tell just through their effort and intensity at practice that this is a big game and quite a bit different than the other weeks,” Hammes said. “The first thing I noticed is what the kids brought to our practices.”
Class 3A’s fourth-ranked Rossville Bulldogs (5-0, 3-0 Mid-East League) will travel to face 3A’s top-ranked Silver Lake Eagles (5-0, 4-0) in the War on 24. The annual matchup is widely considered one of the state’s most intense rivalries, and this year’s meeting between the two unbeaten squads was voted by readers of Kpreps.com as the statewide game of the week.
“It’s obviously one of the bigger ones in the area if not the state,” Hammes said. “One of the things we told our players is that they are extremely fortunate they have a game like this. Not every school has a football game of this magnitude.”
Silver Lake has owned the No. 1 ranking all year. The Eagles won their first four games by a combined score of 185-7. In last week’s game against St. Marys, Silver Lake trailed 22-20 but scored 13 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
The St. Marys game was Silver Lake’s first outing without senior Dailin Kruger, who is out with a knee injury. Kruger, who had started since his sophomore season, had passed for 576 yards and 10 touchdowns and had rushed for 314 yards and four touchdowns this season.
In Kruger’s place, Ryan Matzke rushed for 203 yards and three touchdowns against St. Marys. Silver Lake coach C.J. Hamilton is pleased with Matzke’s athletic ability. Not having Kruger under center means a big loss in experience, however.
“Our biggest concern is how our quarterback with a limited number of reps is going to perform,” Hamilton said. “Athletically, he can perform. It’s just the fact that he’s not had the number of snaps under his belt that we’d like to have in a big game like this.”
Hammes said his team’s defensive approach won’t change regardless of who’s playing quarterback.
“You prepare for the offensive system Silver Lake has, and that’s what we’ve done,” Hammes said. “We didn’t do anything differently because the offense didn’t change and the play calling didn’t change from one quarterback to the other. From our standpoint, we haven’t made an issue out of it. We expect them to put their best available quarterback out there.”
Jace Freeman is Silver Lake’s leading receiver with 15 catches for 313 yards and five touchdowns.
Rossville’s offense is led by a dynamic sophomore quarterback in Tucker Horak. He has completed 55 of 82 passes for 882 yards and eight touchdowns, while leading the team in rushing with 635 yards and 14 touchdowns on only 69 carries.
Five Rossville players have more than 100 yards receiving, including Jack Steckel (199), Devin Morris (184), Thatcher Horak (160), Corbin Horak (159) and Nick Reesor (136).
“They’re extremely fast, and they play hard every down,” Hamilton said. “They’re highly motivated to perform at a very high level.”
Silver Lake has dominated the rivalry in recent years. While there have been several close games, the Eagles haven’t lost to the Bulldogs since falling 30-28 in the 2003 regular season. Even then, Silver Lake avenged the loss in the 2003 playoffs by beating Rossville 41-12 to advance to the 3A state championship.
“We want our school and our community to start having some success in this rivalry,” Hammes said. “Honestly over the last few years it has been all Silver Lake. We’ve stressed that it’s important to the community and we want to hold our end of the bargain up. We want this to be a rivalry and mean something, and that means we have to have some success.”
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