Posen puts 5-0 record on the line against visiting Mio Friday

A football dad commented to his son in the stands at the Posen girls? basketball game Tuesday, that it?ll take a 110-percent effort by the Viking football team to win Friday against Mio. Then he stopped himself: ?it?ll take a 150-percent effort.? Did he change his mind because Mio has racked up 313 points in 2003, already surpassing last year?s point total, or is the fact that they?ve been running other teams into the ground? The T-Bolts buried Arenac Eastern 72-0 a few weeks ago and Hillman by 60 last Friday.

Compare that to Posen, which took care of business with a 44-0 defeat of Arenac last Friday and has scored 166 points this season. There?s no question, in this battle of two 5-0 teams, which ultimately has decided the North Star League champion the last couple of seasons, it?ll take a great effort for one these teams to improve to 6-0, especially if history repeats itself.

POSEN PULLED out last year?s game in the fourth quarter, 16-8, giving the Vikings three wins in four years over Mio, while the T-Bolts won the game two years ago in Posen on a late fourth-quarter play. It was the Vikings? last regular season loss. It ended a 17-game regular season winning streak, which has, over parts of three seasons, now been equaled with the win against Arenac Friday. ?Bottom line, it?s a football game on Friday night,? said Posen coach Glenn Budnick Monday evening. ?As I told the kids today, it just happens that two 5-0 teams are playing each other. That?s the way we?re approaching it. It?s a football game.?

Budnick believes one of the keys will be execution against a Thunderbolt team that brings back nearly everyone. ?We have to get on our blocks and stay on them to have success. We?re not going to drive these guys off the ball,? said Budnick. ?If we can do that, combined with all-around execution, that means faking and carrying out the fakes, making it as deceptive as we can be, that will help us achieve what we want to on Friday.? For Mio coach Joe Stone, who is 6-3 against Posen since he took over the program 10 years ago, said they?ve had Friday?s game circled on their calendar for some time.

?WE?VE BEEN preparing for it since last year when we lost at home,? said Stone. ?In the weight room all summer…it?s what we?ve been waiting for. We want the North Star League championship back in Mio.? Stone said his team will have to play good defense, ?stay fired up and not make many mistakes.? Budnick?s biggest concern going into the contest is the health of his players. ?We?ve had some kids who have been banged up and we?re working hard on making sure that our kids are 100 percent healthy going into that game,? said Budnick.

The last time Mio came into the Posen game with a 5-0 record was in 1999, when Budnick?s team defeated the Thunderbolts 40-30. That ended the Vikings? six-game losing streak against the T-Bolts.

SENIOR JOSH KRAJNIAK had two second half touchdowns against Arenac Eastern as Posen improved to 5-0 overall and 2-0 in the North Star League. Krajniak broke a 45-yard touchdown with 4:29 remaining in the third quarter, the second-longest run of his career, to give PHS a 36-0 lead. He also had a 13-yard touchdown run with 9:12 remaining in the fourth and finished as the team?s leading rusher with 98 yards on seven carries. Before the rain started to fall, the Vikings moved the ball via the air, on their first scoring drive.

Junior quarterback Matt Ponik connected with sophomore Matt Szczerowski on a 24-yard touchdown strike to make it 6-0 at the 2:26 mark of the first quarter. Arenac started moving the ball early in the second quarter, but senior Ron Kroll took the ball out of the hands of a running back and sprinted 60 yards the other way for the score.

DEFENSIVE COACH Howard

Madsen said Szczerowski deserves some credit on the play for staying home at his defensive end position to keep the running back turned inside. The conversion was good, making the score 14-0. The touchdown put a charge in the Vikes. After an Arenac punt, freshman Jason Romel ran for 25 yards and caught a pass for 15, which set up a one-yard touchdown run by Kroll. Senior Craig Latz caught the two-point conversion and the lead was 22. Capping off the scoring in the first half, senior Jesse Romel ran for 15 of his 57 yards for a touchdown that upped the score to 28-0. Kroll ran in the conversion, to make it 30-0.

Kroll had 14 carries for 63 yards, while Jason Romel had 52 yards on the ground. Ponik was six-for-12 throwing, for 74 yards. Posen had 346 yards of offense, compared to Arenac?s 123 yards rushing and 39 yards passing.

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