By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
In each of the last two seasons, the Salina Liberty saw an opportunity to claim a first-ever CIF championship slip through their fingers on the final play of the Champions Bowl.
Despite the gut-wrenching heartbreak, Salina endured, and for the third consecutive year, the Liberty will return to the title bout, this time for a rematch against the Omaha Beef.
The lack of love lost between these two franchises is staggering, but despite the tension that is sure to show its face on the field this weekend, the Liberty remain focused on their ultimate goal of indoor glory.
“There’s nothing poetic about this game,” Salina HC Heron O’Neal said. “We didn’t care who we played we just wanted to get back here. We understand what we need to do to learn from our past experiences and push ourselves over the top.”
The Liberty ran through Billings after a first-round bye to get here while Omaha took down the SW KS Storm before upsetting the Sioux City Bandits in the semis, handing Salina home-field advantage in the process.
“We play a lot different at home and we get that extra juice from our fans,” O’Neal said. “That crowd has a great football IQ. They know to cause all sorts of havoc when our opponents have the ball and they know how to fire us up when we’re on offense.”
The aforementioned Salina faithful put on a special show in a 36-31 win over Omaha earlier this year after a preseason scrum that led to suspensions on both sides.
Since then both teams have been on the rise, with Omaha winning their last six straight, and Salina winning six of their last seven, the lone loss coming in Omaha as part of an ugly 14-11 affair.
Both teams are bursting at the seams with offensive talent, but whenever they meet it seems that the defenses steal the show.
“Omaha has a great defense from top to bottom and it’s never been easy to score on those guys,” he said. “We can’t worry about what they’re doing, we just have to execute our gameplan the best that we can. We have to look ourselves in the mirror and be better.”
For the Beef, the offense will look very similar to what it did in the last meeting between the two, with CIF legend Andrew Jackson taking snaps under center.
While Jackson leads the CIF in both yards (1,947) and completions (201) with runner-up numbers in touchdowns (32), the Liberty secondary has had his number this season, handing him his two least efficient performances.
Salina will also need to ensure that they slow the ground game of DeShawn Jones, who leads the league with 20 rushing touchdowns on the season.
On the other side, the Liberty are still fine-tuning an offense that had all four of their big playmakers on the field for the first time all season in their semifinal win over Billings last week.
“Our offense was inconsistent all-around,” O’Neal said. “Everyone took turns not executing at the rate we needed and the film wasn’t fun to watch but we made a lot of corrections.”
With quarterback Javin Kilgo settling into his role at QB1 (13 TD-3 INT, 640 yds in 4 games) and reigning MVP Tracy Brooks rejoining the offense with Demarius Washington and Fast Ed Smith, Salina finally has all the pieces primed to fire.
On the other side of the ball, the Liberty still boast the best scoring defense in the league by far, holding opponents to just 25 points per game, nearly 10 better than the next best unit.
“Our philosophy has always been creating and capitalizing on turnovers, staying balanced on offense, and being dynamic on special teams,” he said. “That doesn’t change just because it’s championship week.”
Champions Bowl VII will kick off at 6:30 PM at the Tony’s Pizza Events Center and as always the game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) courtesy of Eagle Radio.