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Football: Mountaineers face Broncos in 2nd meeting

Norway visits unbeaten Calumet

Iron Mountain looks to keep momentum going in a West PAC crossover game against Bark River-Harris this week.

The Mountaineers (3-1) are coming off a 35-7 win over rival Norway at Ronberg Field.

Bark River-Harris (1-3), meanwhile, is looking to keep its own momentum going. The Broncos are coming off a 7-6 win over Gogebic after dropping the first three games.

Kickoff is 6 p.m. at Mountaineer Stadium.

It’s just the second football meeting all-time between the schools. Iron Mountain won the first meeting in week eight of 2016 by a 30-8 score.

For Iron Mountain head coach Robin Marttila, the Broncos present a familiar offensive look with the Wing-T offense.

“Similar to Norway in terms of their schemes and sets. It’s funny to play two teams in a row with similar offensive sets, offensive philosophies,” Marttila said. “Last week we played defense on defense, sort of a bend but don’t break. We’re hoping for the same thing this week in terms of reading keys and our execution on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, same thing with how they’re going to defend us. It’ll be a learning curve as the game goes on. We’ll see where it goes I guess.”

Coaches always look at tape from previous games to pore over successes and mistakes. Marttila said it’s a big help to watch tape from the Norway game knowing that mistakes the team corrects this week will go right back towards the same offense.

“You look back at last week, there were definitely some areas we have to improve on defensively,” Marttila said. “From Norway’s basic plays, we’ve gotta improve. Fullback trap hurt us a little bit in the Norway game. I thought we did all right against the sweep.”

It’s harder to tell what the Broncos could do defensively. Given that Bark River-Harris hasn’t faced the spread offense Iron Mountain has mainly used this season. Still, their defensive philosophies are also familiar, Marttila said.

“I compare their defense to Ishpeming in terms of their alignment and what they want to do. I would call it a 5-2 with a strong safety,” Marttila said. “Their head coach Al Stenberg coached up at Ishpeming for a number of years and learned from Jeff Olson. I see that on film what he wants to do defensively. I would say it’s more of a 52 with a strong safety. Some people might call it a 62. That’s against a traditional offense. We’re not very traditional this year.”

Knights prep for Calumet

Norway will have a tall order in making a three-hour drive to face the unbeaten Copper Kings.

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. EST.

The Knights (2-2) licked their wounds since last week’s loss to Iron Mountain and went back to basics.

“We did not play a good game. First of all, we did have a lot of missing assignments. That’s a problem the coach has to take responsibility for that,” Norway head coach Bob Madigan said. “I don’t think we played with the emotion we needed to compete with Iron Mountain and our special teams didn’t play very well either. Overall it wasn’t a great week for us. We are working on it, we’re getting better and we’re going to come back this week and see if we can improve. As far as I’m concerned, the Iron Mountain game is over, we don’t play the again. We’ll learn from our mistakes.”

The Copper Kings (4-0) are coming off a 43-6 win over West Iron County last week. Madigan said the Knights, at their best, have a chance to take down Calumet.

As long as the Knights don’t beat themselves.

“I think it’s going to come down to fundamentals,” Madigan said. “They’re a good football team and they’re ranked No. 1 in the UP. It’s an opportunity to go up and play against them.”

The Copper Kings have mainly operate a run-heavy offense from the I-formation. On defense, Calumet has consistenly switched between the 4-4, 5-3 and 6-2.

“On the films we’ve watched, they beat the teams so soundly they don’t need to throw the ball,” Madigan said. “I know that the quarterback is very athletic. Very good defensive team in terms of hustle and determination. They have a big squad, probably close to 40 kids, so they could put different kids in. They’re not overly big, I don’t think they have a lot of super, super talent. They just have a real solid football program with discipline and plays with emotion.”

Above strategies for Friday’s game, Madigan said playing with emotion will be the biggest key for the Knights.

“The game of football is a very emotional game. You have to fire kids up. A lot of times they say the kids take on the personality of the coach. Evidently sometimes it’s not that way,” Madigan said, referring to last week’s loss to Iron Mountain. “I guess you gotta make the game fun, make it so kids want to play it and create opportunities for them to have success. A lot of football coaching isn’t X’s and O’s, it’s working with kids and how they relate to victories and failures. Emotion is a huge part. Norway historically has played with a lot of emotion, we have, especially on defense. If you don’t have emotion, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

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