Cedar’s dynamic duo ready to start their senior season

HARTINGTON — Rex Becker and Jacob Keiser are a 1-2 punch that would make any tag team wrestling duo quit and take up swing dancing.

The seniors enter their final season for Cedar Catholic High School’s football team hoping to change the narrative and get the program back into the C2 playoffs.

With Becker, a two-time All-State performer manning the defensive line and Keiser moving his way up the Cedar Catholic all-time rushing ranks, the Trojans may be in the position for a grand send off for two of their better players in recent memory.

It all starts at 7 p.m. Friday when they host the state’s top rated team, Bancroft-Rosalie/Lyons-Decatur Northeast.

Head coach Chad Cattau beams about the two young men who could catapult the program back into the playoffs after last year’s 4-5 season that went without a postseason trip.

“First off, they are both very good kids with good personalities, and they are easy to talk to,” Cattau said. “They both have very good work ethics. They never talk back and are very responsible. They are very good leaders: They do a lot of the little things for our team.”

Keiser is one of the five best rushers in school history and despite having to likely miss the first two games of the season with a foot injury, he still believes he is ready for a fabulous swan song.

He rushed for 1,450 yards and 14 scores in nine games a year ago and even caught 17 passes for 172 yards and two touchdowns.

“It’s nice to see all the hard work pay off,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Having rushed for over 3,000 yards in his career, Keiser admits he would trade half of those yards for a state title, cleverly admitting he’d “probably get most of the yards back” through extended playoff runs, thus more games.

“If he stays on that 100-plus a game and we make a run he has a chance to get over 4,000 and separate himself from a lot of guys that have come through here,” Cattau said. Current running backs coach Chad Koch holds the school yardage rushing record with over 5,847 yards. Koch and Ryan Becker are the only two Cedar athletes to have amassed more than 4,000 rushing yards.

Now Keiser has to grin and bear it after wrapping such a strong year.

“It’s hard to sit and watch,” Keiser said. “I was going to a bunch of camps and stuff this summer trying to get ready for the year and get my name out there. Now, I am sitting here watching everyone else do what I want to do.”

The injury – a broken foot – happened during work at the University of South Dakota camp in June.

“Rehab has been long and boring,” Keiser said. “I had to be on crutches for six weeks, a boot for two weeks and now I am just walking along with regular shoes. I am getting there and isn’t hurting too bad when I am on it, which I try not to be too much.”

Knowing he has done what he’s accomplished against such a tough district slate has added importance to the reality of his marks.

“Knowing that you can do it against tough competition always brings your confidence up as well as your team’s confidence,” Keiser said. “You want the team morale high at all times.”

Keiser also said he’d rather run for 4,000 yards against good competition rather than 6,000 against mediocre opposition.

Keiser wants to play collegiate football and his prep exploits give him that belief he can at maybe a NCAA D2 or NAIA program.

“Jacob has very good speed and he is a very strong kid with power and explosion: It’s rare for one guy to bring him down,” Cattau said. “He’s the kind of kid that can score from anywhere for us. He is the focal point of our offense.”

Becker is the 6-foot-2, 260-pound shrimp of his family. 

He has gained a reputation for plowing through opposing offensive lines.

His father, Chuck, is 6-foot-4, 260 and his brother, Beau, is 6-foot-6 and approximately 300 pounds. Not to leave her shortchanged, his mother Sue, is just short of 5-foot-10.

So, it may have been hard work, but also genetics that helped Becker become the physical powerhouse he is on the field.

“I had to put a lot of work into it,” Becker said of his size and strength. “Toward last year, I didn’t have the highest tackle numbers, but they don’t run to my side a lot. You are successful when the offense runs away from you.”

That might come in handy if the team wants to make a postseason run and with the current roster in tow, that might happen.

“I definitely want to make a deep run in the playoffs,” Keiser said. “We have had some progression from the younger guys on our team.”

Becker has collegiate offers from Chadron State, Wayne State and Morningside, but is not quite ready to commit. He said he would lean toward Chadron out of the three if he had to choose today.

“If I get more offers this offseason, I will definitely consider them,” he said.

Cattau says that Keiser is a fundamentally sound force of nature.

“He has great hands and technique,” Cattau said. “He has the quickest hands we’ve seen here in a long time. He’s got very good strength and quickness that separates him against most kids he goes up against.”

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