By TYLER HENRY
JC Post contributor
After a dismal 0-3 start in which the Heat were outscored 153-6, Rural-Vista has turned the corner, collecting two huge wins to enter the home stretch of their season at 2-4.
With victories of 42-28 over Wakefield and 18-14 over Fairfield, the Heat are beginning to see their labor bear fruit despite having one of the youngest rosters in all of 8-Man.
“We’ve seen a little bit of maturity and we’ve been able to watch our kids grow on the field.” RVHS head coach Brian Henry said. “The more they play the better they get, we just need to keep improving on the basics and growing each and every week.”
Coming into the 2022 campaign the scout on Rural-Vista was that of a power-run offense that used the pass more to catch opponents by surprise than to gain big yards.
While the run game remains the primary focus of the Heat offense, the development of freshman signal-caller Koden Sanford has started to open up new opportunities that haven’t been present in previous years.
“We’ve been able to mix things up a little bit and we’ve thrown a lot more passes than I thought we would at the beginning of the year,” Henry said. “We can throw wrinkles into the passing game that other teams have to prepare for now.”
Sophomore feature back Logan Tate has led the way for the Heat in the rushing game, averaging five yards per carry for over 350 yards and five touchdowns behind an offensive line that’s starting to hit its stride.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth with our down linemen and our backs,” he said. “Our ball carriers are starting to trust the guys in front of them and instead of jumping around they’re running straight ahead.”
The RV defense has come a long way as well, holding their opponents in a pair of victories to under 30 points for the first time since 2020.
While the challenge of working with such a young and small roster would wear on many teams, the Heat have chosen to see this as a positive, with most of their players taking the field every Monday as well as Friday.
“A lot of these guys are getting two games in every weekend with JV games and even if we get beat up on Friday those guys get some confidence back on Monday playing against guys their age and size,” Henry said.
Rural-Vista will close out its season with a pair of district opponents in 1-5 Hutch Central Christian and 6-0 Canton-Galva, looking to shore up both sides of the ball before the 2022 postseason.
“We’re probably going to be the 4-seed so we’re focused on staying healthy and building on the things we’ve done well already to end the season as strong as we can,” he said.
The Heat will be back in action on Friday night when they return home to take on the Cougars at 7 pm.