By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
After getting over the .500 hump in 2022, the Minneapolis Lions entered this season with high expectations, looking to take the next step as a program.
While their first five games have gone the same way they did a season ago, the Lions have undoubtedly seen improvement as this year’s 3-2 unit enters the home stretch of the season with a point differential (+66) 40 points higher than that of 2022.
The resiliency of this group is something special,” Lions head coach Tom Flax said. “We have a challenging schedule and how they have handled preparation for each team has gotten better each week.”
That aforementioned schedule includes three of Class 2A’s top five teams according to Kpreps, as Minneapolis has gone toe to toe with #4 Southeast of Saline (5-0), #2 Sabetha (5-0), and in a few weeks, the reigning champs in #1 Nemaha Central (5-0).
Despite this gauntlet of a schedule, the Lions haven’t been content to just appear competitive, and will look to use these contests to prop themselves up for what they hope will be a real postseason run.
After playing Sabetha our guys realized that we can line up against anyone and put ourselves in position to win,” Flax said. “We want to be able to host the first round of playoffs and in order to do that we have to knock off Nemaha and also a very good Riley County team. If we can put complete games together down the stretch then we can put ourselves in position to host in the first round.”
The Lions continue to follow the lead of first-year quarterback Owen Just, who is completing over 60% of his passes with over 750 yards of total offense and eight touchdowns.
Minneapolis has also gotten a boost from senior tailback Braylon Smith, who has added another 300 yards and eight more scores on the ground alone.
The one achilles heel of this year’s Lions has been in the turnover column, where the team has surrendered seven interceptions and a pair of fumbles, but where the defense has forced 12 turnovers of their own.
If this unit can clean up the unforced errors, they could be well on their way to the kind of run they’ll seek to make come November.
“We have to continue to create takeaways and limit our turnovers,” Flax said. “We have to be better at ball security down the stretch if we want to make a run the rest of the season into the postseason.”
The Lions will be back on the gridiron this Friday when they welcome in the defending 2A champs in Nemaha Central at 7 pm.