MOKANE - Take a look at the South Callaway team that prepared to play at Orchard Farm in 2010. Now take a look at the current team that is readying itself to play Orchard Farm this season.
The similarities are abundant. And No. 9 ranked South Callaway can only hope to continue with the symmetries when the Bulldogs host Orchard Farm tonight in their homecoming game. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
South Callaway (5-0) outslugged Orchard Farm on the road 18-7 last season, getting the sixth of its 10 wins in the process. And much like this year's team, that version did it with defense and a relentless run game despite getting penalized 11 times for 85 yards.
The Bulldogs ran 72 plays - 62 of those were runs. South Callaway racked up 346 yards on the day, with 143 of those coming from then-sophomore quarterback Jason Kimminau and then-junior running back T.J. Bucholz.
KImminau - in for injured Konrad Kemper -Â ran for 67 yards and a touchdown and threw and a score on 6-of-10 passing. The defense was stingy on the night in limiting Orchard Park to 167 yards of total offense.
Bucholz, who ran for 77 yards in that contest, was part of Bulldogs backfield that torched Southern Boone in limited touches in last week's 50-28 win. South Callaway ran just 30 plays but accumulated 360 yards of total offense in the win. After senior wide receiver Ben Seitz raced for a 67-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, Bucholz followed that up with an 86-yard scoring trot of his own to put the Bulldogs up 21-6.
Those were two of the four plays from scrimmage South Callaway ran in the second quarter. The grand total of those plays: 18 seconds.
That won't bode well for Orchard Farm. The Eagles are coming off of a 36-15 loss to Clopton/Ellsberry last week in which they gave up 217 yards rushing and 254 yards passing. Though the Bulldogs threw the ball just five times last week, Kemper completed three of them for 101 yards and a 49-yard scoring strike to senior running back Hunter Leeper.
The South Callaway defense is coming off a season-worst performance in terms of points and yards allowed in the game against Southern Boone. The Bulldogs' defense was on the field for 70 Southern Boone offensive snaps and gave up 395 yards of offense.
The Bulldogs' defense forced Southern Boone into three turnovers.