By Mike Drooger –

Edgerton Flying Dutchmen head football coach Andrew Fleischman is one of the best there is at dissecting game film to find trends of opponents. Going into Edgerton’s game vs. the Coyotes of Heron Lake-Okabena/Fulda (HLOF), Coach Fleischman knew the Coyotes would spread their offensive players around the field trying to exploit one-on-one and gap situations. But knowing what a team will do and stopping it—or even containing it—are totally different things.

For the most part, the Edgerton players were in the right spots, and they made their fair share of plays, but in the end, the Coyotes just had too many big plays—offensively and defensively—in a 34-8 win over EHS. At the game’s end, the Coyotes had run 59 offen-sive plays while Edgerton ran 55, which is proof HLOF had its fair share of big plays.

“We can take plays away, which we did tonight, but then HLOF would go to another play to exploit a weakness. I thought we contained them pretty well, but they came up with some big plays. We’d have good coverage, but they’d still get the completion. We com-peted our tails off tonight. It just didn’t go our way. Sometimes you have to tip your hat to the competition,” Fleischman stated during his postgame radio interview with KDWC’s Ross Kreun. “We knew the Coyotes would be tough despite their 1-4 record,” Fleischman also said. HLOF’s four defeats were to Sleepy Eye St. Mary, Grand Meadow, Hills-Beaver Creek, and Mountain Lake Area. Those four teams had a combined record of 20-4 after their games on October 8.

The game vs. the Coyotes started well as far as Edgerton was concerned. Defensively they forced the ‘Yotes to turn the ball over on downs on their initial possession, and the Dutch-men set up shop at the 42. It took the Dutchmen just five rushing plays (three by Michael Gunnink and two by Nolan Buckridge) to put the ball in the end zone. A direct snap to Buckridge with the ball at the eight was bobbled, but he gained control of the ball and scored with 6:03 remaining in the first quarter. Buckridge also added the two-point con-version for an 8-0 lead.

While the Dutchmen utilize a methodical offensive attack, the Coyotes have quick-strike capability, which they showcased on their ensuing drive. Even after a “jailbreak” defensive play by Edgerton that caused a two-yard loss on first down, the ‘Yotes went 67 yards in two plays to tie the game at eight. With a score of 8-8, the unthinkable happened to EHS. It was a play somewhat similar to the backbreaker they had suffered at Westbrook the previous game. An Edgerton fumble was scooped by HLOF and ran to pay dirt to give HLOF 16 points in a matter of 47 seconds. As it turned out, it was a play from which Edgerton was unable to recover.