BELOIT — This hasn’t been the sort of season Beloit Memorial’s Purple Knights were expecting as they head into their finale at Elkhorn.

First of all, they had hoped this would be the fall they finally ended a 24-year playoff drought.

Instead they’ll once again play for pride against the postseason-bound Elks.

“We’re trying to finish on a strong note,” Beloit head coach Brad Dement said. “We want to put together four quarters of good football because we’ve been inconsistent all year. We want to send the seniors out on a high note. It will be interesting to see how they want to finish the season.”

The Knights are coming off a 41-12 loss to unbeaten Union Grove last Friday that dipped their season record to 2-6.

“We’ve under-achieved too many times this season,” Dement said. “We’ve been close. This season’s record could be flipped. A lot of factors go into that and they’re frustrating.”

Elkhorn heads into the regular-season finale 6-2 and looking for playoff posturing. But Dement sees a team the Knights are quite capable of defeating.

“Elkhorn is a team we’ve had success against in the past,” he season. “They play the same style of football we do. We’re both hoping to control the line of scrimmage.

“We’ve been hit-and-miss on that. Last week we didn’t do well in the first half, but after that we played much better on defense.

“Offensively, it will help to have our starting quarterback back this week (Braylen Huebbe said out last week for disciplinary reasons),” Dement said. “Our backup did a good job last week. (Colten Fry) was a sophomore making his first varsity start and he did what we needed him to do.”

Fry was 5-of-10 for 58 yards. Huebbe has completed 40-of-80 passes for 580 yards and five TDs.

The Knights will no doubt put the ball in the air Friday, but only to loosen up Elkhorn’s defense.

“When we have the ball we have to move it,” Dement said. “Obviously, we’re going to do our fair share of running the ball. But if they load the box to try to stop our run, we better be able to pass to mix it up.”

Westosha Central held Beloit’s all-time leading rusher, senior James Ford III, to 48 yards on 18 carries last week. Dement hopes Ford has the blocking to finish with a big night. The senior is 111 yards shy of 1,000 for the season. He also leads the Knights with 15 touchdowns.

“It would be nice to have James have a showcase game,” the coach said. “He has had success against them in the past. They are big and strong and they know our offense as well as we know theirs so it will be interesting.”

The Knights have rushed for 1,737 yards this season, averaging 6.5 yards per carry and scoring 21 touchdowns. In addition to Ford’s 889 yards, Brannon Hatchett has 55 carries for 422 yards (7.7). Last week, Vinson Reed had five tries for 48 yards.

Elkhorn junior Ryan Stacy has 844 yards on 124 carries with seven touchdowns. Elkhorn quarterback Tyler Nelson has completed 11-of-21 passes for 225 yards, but has also run for 572 yards and eight scores.

“Their fullback (Stacy) is a bruiser who runs hard,” Dement said. “They have some guys up front who push pretty good. Their quarterback can run, too. They will definitely try to pound it. We’ll load the box, bring some blitzes, play some man-to-man and try to disrupt them.”

The Knights are still seeking their first road victory since joining the Southern Lakes Conference.

“That has really been a sore spot for sure,” Dement said. “Elkhorn is a good team and they’re looking to get another win to get higher in the playoff seeding. But we’ll come out and hopefully play hard and give it one last hurrah. I tell you, 3-and-6 sounds a lot better than 2-and-7.”

Source: Beloit Daily News