By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
In 2022, the Ell-Saline Cardinals made the decision to drop from Class 1A to 8-Man Division-I.
The choice was difficult to be sure, but one Ell-Saline believed was necessary to provide the best student-athlete experience possible for it’s players.
“When you go back and look at those schedules, our guys were battling but we were so worn down playing an 11-man schedule with a 22-man roster,” Cardinals head coach Joe Roche said. “We made the decision that helped protect the kids physically and mentally, and we really feel that we’re in the right spot now.”
While the fundamentals of the game are the same in theory, 8-man football differs drastically from its 11-man counterpart in many ways.
On most offensive downs, the quarterback is completely unaccounted for, with six fewer players on the field, athletes are given more space to make big plays, and with less help over the top, each player's defensive assignment becomes all the more important.
The adjustment period led to some interesting games for Ell-Saline, but the Cardinals were able to weather the storm, and at the end of that 2022 campaign, many saw the season as a success, as the Cardinals finished 6-3, even hosting a playoff game in week nine.
There was just one problem.
In their three losses, Ell-Saline was humiliated, falling at the hands of Little River, Clifton-Clyde, and Hoxie by a combined score of 140-26.
“We learned really quick that no matter how many people you have on the field football is football,” Roche said. “When we got beat it wasn’t because we ran into a more athletic team in the passing game, we got beat up and bullied inside in those games.”
Rather than seeking out a crafty solution to this problem, Ell-Saline chose to close the gap to those 8-Man blue bloods in the weight room, where an all-new Cardinal team was born.
“We knew after our first year that we needed to get stronger,” he said. “I can’t understate how much experience has brought us to where we are right now and now, and with our size, we’re really able to move the ball with authority.”
Armed with the knowledge of the season prior and newfound strength from an offseason in the weight room, Ell-Saline looked to begin their season with a bang, but were decimated 32-6 at the hands of a Moundridge team they had defeated the year before.
“We were really disappointed in the way we played week one,” Roche said. “As a coach you can yell at those guys if you want, but to me that’s the easy way out. We chose instead to build our guys back up. We had to help them realize how good we could be if we eliminated mistakes and what we see today is a mindset of Moundridge never happening again.”
In the seven weeks that followed, Ell-Saline not only tightened up their miscues, they dominated the competition, outscoring the rest of their opponents 321-104.
That stretch included a hard-fought 24-14 win over Little River that gave the Cardinals the confidence needed to decimate Clifton-Clyde 40-26 just two weeks later.
“Clifton-Clyde was absolutely a revenge game for us,” Roche said. “They beat us 50-0 and the kids we put on the field this year were the same kids that got their tails whipped in that game. Part of our summer may have been lifting weights and thinking about Clifton-Clyde, and everyone needs that kind of rival that makes you aspire to be better than yourself.”
Before the year began, the Cardinal's mission was simply to close the gap to those top teams, but with definitive wins in hand over both, there was no more denying it, Ell-Saline had built a contender.
While the road ahead will be a difficult one wrought with more challenges for sure, the ceiling for the Cardinals remains higher than anyone watching this second-year 8-man program could have imagined, and with the wind of a seven-game win streak in their sails, confidence in Brookville is at an all-time high.
“This team truly believes that we can compete with the best teams in the state throughout these playoffs,” Roche said. “We know we can outhit teams that are just as big as us defensively, and that we can cause problems for people through the air and on the ground offensively. We think we can adapt to our opponents and we like our chances.”
The Cardinals will begin their playoff run in Brookville this Friday when they play host to the 5-3 Quinter Bulldogs.