Posted: Nov 18, 2016
Moge's Musings - November 18, 2016
MUSINGS
Football is over for 2016 and just in time to avoid the cold weather approaching this weekend.
In the season finale, the Swedes pulled out a miracle on James Augusta's 46 yard field goal as time expired. Looking at the final 10 or so minutes of the game, it almost seemed like the days of Himself, The Great Man on the sidelines.
Everyone on both sides of the field knew that TK had a direct line to the heavens and somehow his Swedes would be delivered. It was really unbelievable to see what we had to do to even be in position for a chance to win at the end.
For the record, Nate Ocran made it to 1000 yards for the 10 games he played in this year, despite the Bulldogs keying on him and holding him down like no one else has this season.
Of course, that let the quarterbacks have a good day and Isaiah Salazar came on when Boom (Darius Handcox) suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter and was done for the day as well as his career.
When post season honors came out this week, Ocran, Justin (Bear) Burns and Mike Wimberly were offensive picks while Rhett Mizer was picked on defense.
Honorable mention went to Dalton Goodwin and Anthony (Action) Jackson on offense while Bobby O'Neill, Darius Squire, Jau'marl Clark, Damian Bell-White and Javan (JJ) Moore were tabbed on defense.
In the character category, Ali Shahryar was named the Ted Kessinger Champions of Character Award.
Now it's out on the recruiting trail to bring in more talent for the future. I'm aware of the coaching wish lists, now it is up to the staff to find what they want and as importantly, scholarship them enough to get them here.
Personally, PKM has seen plenty of talent at the high school level during the season at various schools around the state. I must say I wouldn't mind if we could entice some of Jamie Cruce's players out at Pratt to become Swedes.
I was aware he had a talented and extremely fast football team of Fightin' Frogs out there, but I didn't know just how good until I saw them run rough shod over a very good team of Smoky Valley Vikings. As good as the Orange and Black was this year under Tim Lambert, they were no match for Pratt.
TIDBIT
With the close of football, we can turn our attention to basketball and the KCAC season will be underway Thursday night with the first of two intra-county games with McPherson.
The Bulldogs always play Bethany tough and haven't lost to an NAIA team this season.
Bethany, on the other hand, has been up and down but last Saturday knocked off Randall University out of Moore, Oklahoma.
Playing with the deck Clair Oleen has had for the first six games of the season, a 3-3 mark isn't as bad as it could have been. But now there will be no more excuses of "Just wait, the boys will be back."
The boys, of course, are Cody Harris and Joey Habtemariam. Both were on six game suspensions for violation of team rules and will make their first appearance at McPherson.
We figure Harris will be a marked man as every coach in the conference knows of his long range shooting ability as well as his athleticism. Habtemariam started quite a few games at one of the two guard positions last season and is also a deadly bomber from downtown.
With so much depth in his talent pool, it now becomes a matter of pulling the right strings to get the most from the players Oleen has.
Thursday night should be interesting to say the least.
Next up will be Ottawa at home on Saturday night before a trip to Southwestern next week before Thanksgiving. Over the holiday break, the Swedes will be in McPherson again on the 26th, but this time to play the Central Christian Tigers.