9B title to be full of offense when Colome, Harding County collide Thursday

COLOME — If offensive statistics are any indication, the DakotaDome scoreboard will get quite a workout.

Both the Colome Cowboys (10-1) and the Harding County Ranchers (12-0) come into Thursday’s 9B high school championship football contest averaging more than 35 points per game and have the potential to combine for 100 points.

“I hope not,” Colome head coach Kevin Keiser said. “If a lot of points are being scored, I don’t think that benefits us. We are not a real explosive team. We have put up a lot of points, but a lot of our points have come in the second half when we have worn teams down.”

While each team can light up the scoreboard, they go about it in different manners. The Ranchers prefer a balanced attack led by dual threat quarterback Jess Feist, who has thrown 1,745 yards and 20 touchdowns and amassed 1,133 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns on the ground.

Feist will look to connect early and often with his two favorite targets, tight end Ckyler Floyd, who has hauled in 48 passes for 842 yards to go along with eight touchdowns, and wide receiver Harley Mollman, who leads the team with nine touchdowns.

“We got to contain their quarterback,” Keiser said. “We got to limit his running game to start with, but he can also beat you with his arm. He is a dual-threat quarterback so he is difficult to stop, but we have to first stop him from running.”

The Cowboy offense will go about scoring its points much differently than the Ranchers. Look for the Harding County defense to receive a heavy dose quarterback Terrance Kinzer, who leads the Colome offense with 1,420 rushing yards and 27 rushing touchdowns.

The talented running quarterback is riding a hot streak the last two games in which he has run for a combined 497 yards and eight touchdowns.

Despite not being called on an abundance of times to throw the ball, Kinzer can go over the top and when that happens he will look to link up with Cohl Ratterman, who has caught 16 balls for 292 and six touchdowns.

En route to the state championship the Cowboys methodically wore teams down with their run game. Colome, the No. 2 seed in the Class 9B playoffs, defeated Bison 52-0 in the first round, knocked off Avon 22-16 in the quarterfinals and beat Viborg-Hurley 52-36 in the semifinals on Saturday.

“Our game plan all year has been to kind of wear teams down with our run game and hopefully it gets easier the second half,” Keiser said.

Harding County, the top seed in 9B, defeated Jones County 46-0 in the first round, Faulkton Area 42-0 in the quarterfinals and topped Castlewood in the semifinals 40-28.

Harding County coach Jay Wammen could not be reached for this report.

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