The Roland-Story Norsemen football team returns to action on Friday night, as they make the trip down to the Des Moines metro to take on the Lions of Des Moines Christian in Class 2A, District 8 action at DMC High School in Urbandale. Roland-Story enters 4-2 and 2-1 in district play following their 62-31 win over Greene County, while DMC enters at 3-3 and 1-2 in the district following their 61-7 loss to (2A) #7 Kuemper Catholic. Friday marks the first-ever meeting between the Lions and the Norsemen.
Des Moines Christian enters trying to regroup following their blowout loss to the Knights of Carroll Kuemper by a score of 61-7. The Knights held the Lions high-flying passing attack in check in the game, and the Lions rushing attack struggled as well. DMC’s offense begins and ends with senior quarterback Tate Platte, the Drake-commit has thrown for 1,538 yards and 19 touchdowns, but has thrown 12 interceptions while completing 57.1% of his passes. Platte has a plethora of receivers at his disposal, as John Doohen leads the Lions in receiving yards with 353 off 22 receptions and 6 touchdowns, while Tyler Drefke leads the Lions in receptions with 29 for 323 yards and 5 touchdowns. Junior Jake Kistenmacher has 20 receptions for 317 yards and 4 touchdowns, while Landon Craven has 334 yards off 18 receptions for 2 touchdowns. Platte also doubles as DMC’s leading rusher with 261 yards and 2 touchdowns, but Wyatt O’Dell leads the backs with 121 rushing yards in the Lions air raid attack.
Defensively, the bell cow for Des Moines Christian has been sophomore linebacker Kyle Friend, who’s amassed a team-high 34 tackles, with 7 TFL and 3.5 sacks and an interception. Outside linebacker Jace Fadden has proven to be an effective edge rusher, with 26 tackles, 6.5 TFL and a team-high 4 sacks, while the other edge rusher in Caleb Bailey has 19.5 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks. Defensive line production has been spotty for the Lions, with leading tackle Nathan Faber having just 9 tackles to lead the unit. The production in the defensive backfield has been steady, with Ty Andrews leading the unit with 25 tackles and 2 tackles for loss, while most of the secondary’s interceptions have come from the back ups for the Lions.
Roland-Story will look to execute a similar gameplan to their win over Greene County, in using a punishing ground attack to open up an efficient passing attack. Look for Hesston Johnson and Fiston Carlson to carry a heavy load, while Jonovan Wilkinson will get touches in a number of different ways. Defensively, the Norsemen secondary will try and be much sharper after being torched for 464 yards by Greene County’s Gabe Ebersole last week, 328 of those yards going to Jack Hansen.
Kickoff is slated for 7 PM from Des Moines Christian High School in Urbandale.