Greene County hosted Clarke (Osceola) at Linduska Field last night in the last regular season football game of 2022, and now it’s onto the playoffs. Coach Caden Duncan’s team rolled to a 54-8 Senior night victory to finish 5-0 in Class 2A District 8 for the second year in a row. The Rams have won 13 straight district games dating back to 2020 and are 7-1 overall, ranked seventh in 2A, and owners of a five game winning streak heading into the postseason. Clarke finished in fourth place in the district at 2-3 and is 5-3 overall.

Junior quarterback Gabe Ebersole threw a career high four touchdown passes and he also had a career best 241 yards passing on 12 of 23 with no interceptions. Senior Jesse Miller, senior Richard Daugherty, junior Jack Hansen, and sophomore Nicholas Stream each had a TD reception. Ebersole has now thrown 13 TD passes on the season against just one interception. He also returned a kickoff 94 yards before being stopped on the five yard line. Sophomore Camden Strennen also got in the scoring column with a 47 yard run. Both Stream and Daugherty had defensive touchdowns with Stream intercepting a pass and returning it 26 yards for a TD. Daugherty picked up a fumble forced by junior Michael Rumley and went 27 yards for a score. Daugherty led receivers with 124 yards on four catches while Strennen led the rushing attack with eight carries for 53 yards.

Junior Nathan Behne had a pair of 22 yard field goals, went six for six on extra point kicks, and had seven touchbacks on kickoffs.

Greene County led 7-0 after one quarter and 27-7 at the half. It was 40-0 after three periods before Clarke got on the board early in the fourth on a Jack Cooley to Austin Gonseth pass, then Gonseth passed to Cooley for the conversion points.

Neither team ran the ball especially well with the Rams at 84 yards on 24 carries and the Indians 82 yards on 34 attempts. Clarke had 100 fewer passing yards than the Rams at 141 on 10-29-2 and total yards favored the Rams 325-223. Greene County’s defense held the Indians to just 60 yards of offense in the first half while the Rams had 235 of offense in the first two quarters.

Playoff pairings for 2A, 1A, A, and 8-player programs are set to be released at 10 a.m. today by the Iowa High School Athletic Association. Greene County already knows it will have a first round home game at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21 vs. a fourth place team from another district. All playoff games for the Rams can be heard on KG98 and streamed on www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.

F

Clarke 0    0   0  8  8

Rams  7  20 13 14 54

Scoring summary: 1:53 (1) Jesse Miller 10 pass from Gabe Ebersole (Nathan Behne kick), 7-0. 6:39 (2) Behne 22 field goal, 10-0. 2:52 (2) Behne 22 field goal, 13-0. 1:59 (2) Richard Daugherty 68 pass from Ebersole (Behne kick), 20-0. 1:39 (2) R. Daugherty 27 fumble return forced by Michael Rumley (Behne kick), 27-0. 6:39 (3) Nicholas Stream 10 pass from Ebersole (pass failed), 33-0. 4:04 (3) Camden Strennen 47 run (Behne kick) 40-0. Clarke 10:00 (4) Austin Gonseth 20 pass from Jack Cooley (Gonseth pass to Cooley), 40-8. Jack Hansen 5 pass from Ebersole (Behne kick) 47-8. Stream 26 interception return (Behne kick), 54-8.