Battle of the Wildcats set for Friday in Winside

HARTINGTON - It is Wildcats against Wildcats this week. Hartington-Newcastle travels to Winside for their matchup in week three.

HNS sits at 2-0, and Winside is 0-1with a loss to Bloomfield in week one.

While Winside does not have stats posted from the week one loss, it is easy to tell that Bloomfield dominated early. The Bees led the game by 48-6 at the end of the first quarter.

Winside would score 18 points but allowed 62 to the Bees in the loss.

There may be no stats provided, but HNS coach Corey Uldrich knows who to watch for in this game.

“Winside has a really dynamic quarterback in senior Koby Ellis.  They have a couple of nice linemen who are over 200 pounds, and they play freshmen Cayden Ellis as a wide receiver/motion back.  Winside will run a no-huddle offense, which will really challenge our kids to know their assignments and be disciplined.

For  Uldrich, this season is about continuing to improve game by game.

“We’re taking everything one game at a time, and we’re using the idea that we’re playing every game to get better for ourselves,” said Uldrich. “The scoreboard will continue to take care of itself if we play as well as we can.”

HNS is coming off a commanding 57-6 win over Niobrara/Verdigre on Friday night. It was the second week in a row that five different Wildcat players scored touchdowns. Lincoln McPhillips, Ethan Koch, Turner Korth, Kobe Heitman, and Shaye Morten have each found their way into the end zone.

“We’re working to keep people involved in the offense each week,” said Uldrich. “As the season progresses, it will be nice to have options at multiple positions so that if teams want to take someone or something away, we can look elsewhere for a counter.”

Hartington-Newcastle will travel to Winside this week, followed by a bye week before starting district play. Uldrich said the timing of the bye week is nice because it will help the team prepare for a challenging district.