Harrison heads for McBain Friday to open Division 7 football playoffs

By BEN MURPHY

Cleaver Sports Writer

The regular season went just about as well as the Harrison football team had hoped. The Hornets (7-2 overall) will now officially turn their attention to the Division 7 playoffs, as they head for mcbain (7-2) on Friday.

“They are a very good football team,” head coach Jamie Lipovsky said of their round one matchup. “They play in the Highland Conference, they beat Evart by a similar score, they beat Pine River by a similar score, so we have a couple of common opponents. They are pretty battle tested in the sense that they lost to Beal City who is really tough and lost to Edwardsburg, who is 9-0. They have a couple of close wins over Fowler and Charlevoix, so it is going to be a fight, but our kids are up to the challenge. We have a pretty good game plan, so now it is about going to play ball and playing the way we know how to play.”

This is the third year in a row that the Hornets have made the playoffs, which means they have plenty of post-season experience to tap into. That could prove huge going up against a team like mcbain.

“This group of kids, we have a lot of seniors and many of them played on those other (playoff) teams, so we are battled tested as well,” Lipovsky said. “We feel like these kids can play with anybody, a few plays here or there and it is a closer game with Meridian, and we think we had the Shepherd game in hand, and we just let it get away from ourselves. This is a good group of seniors, with some sophomores and juniors mixed in there. They work hard, they go into seasons with expectations of going 7-2 or above. We have a standard, and that is to win seven or eight games, so it didn’t surprise me at all this year. It’s a good group of kids.”

Of course, the Ramblers pose some challenges themselves. They’re loaded with some solid skill position players, and their line play seems exceptional as well.

“They have a couple of quarterbacks that they rotate, they are both very solid and they have a couple of good running backs and receivers, and their offensive line is probably under-rated,” Lipovsky said. “They probably get a lot of accolades to their skill players, but their offensive and defensive lines are pretty solid. They have a couple of good linebackers defensively; it is a tough group of kids. It reminds me a lot of my own team, so it is really going to be two tough groups of kids going at each other, so it is going to be a lot of fun.”

Harrison has the experience. They have the talent. They have the fight, too. Now they just need gameday to get here.

“When our kids get knocked down, we want them to get back up and when they get punched we want them to punch back, that’s the key and I think they have done that every game this season,” Lipovsky said. “Our kids have good resilience, and they are going to battle for sure. We are just looking to play ball and have fun and hopefully we can move on to the second round.”