The Polar Bears are fresh off a 29-26 victory at Hopewell-Loudon last Friday. The win last week put Margaretta in the driver’s seat of the SBC River with just 3 games left. However, when speaking with Coach Quisno this week he knows that last week’s game no longer matters saying, “if we don’t care of business this week then last week loses its luster. We really haven’t accomplished our goals yet, we haven’t locked up a home playoff game yet, so we must continue to get better to reach out goals. We still have three games left to play, we aren’t guaranteed anything at this point it is only Week 8.” All attention for Margaretta is on the task at hand, and that is the Tiffin Calvert Senecas. The Green & White head over to Heidelberg University and Hoernemann Stadium Friday night to battle a Tiffin Calvert team who has steadily gotten better game after game. Tiffin Calvert is 3-4 on the season and sitting in 8th place in Division VII Region 26. The Senecas have won two of their last three games beating Lakota two weeks ago 34-7 and knocked off Northwood last week 48-32. Coach Quisno had this to say about Tiffin Calvert, “They are a good football team, they have really good skill players. They are big upfront, the Moyer brothers are big and experienced. We will have a size disadvantage on both lines and we have to be really sound with our technique. We have to find ways to run the football offensively and find ways to continue to keep drives alive and get off blocks and make tackles against their size. Tiffin Calvert- 3-4 (2-2 SBC River) Offense: 21.2 PTS PER GAME The Senecas will feature a spread offense attack out of the shotgun most of the evening. They have the ability to play two different quarterbacks in Tucker Coleman and Charlie Palm. Palm has taken the majority of the reps this year as he has completed 65/119 of his passes on the season for over 700 yards and 4 touchdowns. Coleman has thrown for 179 yards and 4 touchdowns. When throwing the football Tiffin Calvert’s top target is Logan DeMoss the standout wide receiver has 19 catches this year for 431 yards and 6 touchdowns. Tucker Coleman and Drew Meyer have double digit receptions for over 100 yards receiving. The Senecas will try to keep you honest with their rushing attack, as running back Nolan Lee has carried it 118 times for 524 yards and 9 touchdowns. Coach Quisno was impressed with the Seneca offense saying, “they are going to spread us out, and will try to run between the tackles which can be hard to defend at times. The running back and wide receiver is a really tough combination to defend. The quarterback can run it too so that can cause issues as well.” Defense: 31 PTS PER GAME The Calvert defense has surrendered some points this year, but they have also played a very tough schedule up to this point in the season. They have played future playoff teams in their non-league schedule Mohawk, Monroeville, and St. Paul, and in the league, they have played the two other league favorites Hopewell-Loudon and Gibsonburg. The Seneca defense is led by Logan DeMoss who has made 75 tackles during the season including an interception. Anderson Hart has made 51 tackles including a sack and recovered a fumble. Owen Siefert has made 26 tackles and has made 2 sacks this season. Margaretta: 6-1 (4-0 SBC River) 34.8 POINTS PER GAME OFFENSE: Margaretta’s offense last week got big boosts from their special teams last week in their big win over Hopewell Loudon. Tyson Bailey had a couple big kickoff returns, and Zack Bouy returned a punt for a touchdown. The Polar Bear offense was able to drive into the Chieftain Redzone three different times, but were forced to settle for field goals early in the game. However, when the offense needed points in the 4th quarter, the offense came through! Jake Bouy started the 4th quarter with a 3 yard QB keeper to give the Bears a 23-20 lead. After an HL touchdown, Margaretta again marched down the field and with 12 seconds remaining Jake Bouy found a wide open Kale Bailey in the back of the endzone for the game winning touchdown. I asked Coach Quisno how impressed he was with the resiliency of his football team this week, “they all played last year and went through sorta disappointing season. Our team chemistry is about as good since I have been here. They are all good friends, and they want to see everyone succeed. I was really impressed how we kept fighting, and how we marched down the field and scored that game winning touchdown was a tribute to our players and to Coach Ringholz for calling a really good offensive game. A lesser team might have folded the tent, but not this group!” Going into week 8, Coach Quisno is hoping the Bears can clean up and improve in the following areas, “we had some issues running the football last Friday, we must find a ways to control the line of scrimmage and run the football so we can go to the play action pass. We have to continue to force takeaways defensively to give us more possessions offensively.” DEFENSE: 9.8 PTS PER GAME The Margaretta defense has been fantastic all year long. They have flew around and played physical from the start of the season. Coach Quisno said this about how his defense can still improve with 3 weeks left to go, “Very impressed how physical how we have played this year. Our motto is play fast and physical and that describes us to a T. We play fast and Coach Keck makes things easy for them, and we have tackled well this year! We have really talked about working improving our take aways, we would like to improve in our area.” The Polar Bears are fighting for their first league championship in football since 2001. Coach Quisno said, “We can’t get caught reading our press clippings from last week. We have tried to tell our kids, and anyone who I have talked to all week that “we are on to Calvert”. He continued to say, “We have a mature team, and they know all our goals are still in front of us and we have a long 3 weeks in front of us!” The only thing that matters this week is Tiffin Calvert and the Bears will head to Tiffin and try to #LeaveNoDoubt. Check Out Playoff Standings from Joe Eitel--Click Here Check Out Playoff Projections from Drew Pasteur's--Click Here