Sports News

By NEIL O. NELSON
Playoff football fever has enveloped Hillsboro.
The fans are excited, anyway.
The football Burros are another story.
Quietly embracing the notoriety of being a repeat region champion and the No. 4 ranked team in the state in 9-man football, the undefeated Hillsboro Burros will take their business as usual game strategy into tomorrow’s playoff game much like they have all year.
They’ll quietly march in orderly fashion from the Hillsboro Events Center to the adjacent football field, where they’ll line up for pre-game warm-ups, ever mindful of the opposing team that is noisily preparing for the start of the game, which by the time Hillsboro is on the field is only minutes away.
The Burro starters will run through the customary gauntlet of teammates, ever-mindful again that the opposing team, in this case the twice-beaten and respected Lakota Raiders, are not-so-patiently waiting their turn waiting at game introductions.
The opening kickoff, scheduled for 1:30 p.m., should proceed as planned, provided the Burros are in position on the 40 yard line.
You can expect Lakota will be there and ready to play. Screaming ready, to be sure.
Oh, the Burros will be ready to play, too.
Make no mistake of that.
Their demeanor, however, will fool you.
But, once the game starts, the Hillsboro Burros, said to be a “smash mouth” high school football team that in the end buries its opponents, literally in the dust of a beaten down and exhausted football field, will be more than ready to test the mettle of their opponent. Their own character, they’re quite sure of.
Call it confidence, call it a workmanlike attitude, call it determination, call it anything you want.
Hillsboro football fans call it a winning football.
The Burros, meanwhile, just want to play football.
Regular season wins are nice, postseason games are better yet.
Pushed in recent weeks by teams like the Warriors, and Spartans, the Burros, in sticking with their game plan of ball control, went about business in their no-nonsense fashion, racking up win after win, the last being a win over Hankinson in the final game of the 2007 regular season schedule.
The Hankinson victory recorded last Friday night in Hillsboro proved to be a good test for the Mark Rerick-coached 9-0 Burros.
Seldom behind in a game this year, the Burros trailed 28-20 at halftime and 34-26 in the third quarter. Passing and moving the football like roving buccaneers racing the setting sun, the Pirate ship, unstoppable in the first half, was beached in the second half, when and where the Burros regained control of the war games.
In the end, Hillsboro won 48-34.
Rest assured the Burros’ non-nonsense approach to winning will be present and accounted tomorrow afternoon. The first sign of Hillsboro’s business as usual approach to the playoff game will be the Burros’ controlled march to the football field.
Slow and sure and quietly confident.
Fans take note: Unrestrained hollering is allowed on the sidelines.