EPC will be tested by Boyceville tonight

• EPC's Tyler Niebur and Kyle Webb

Tyle Niebur and Kyle Webb take down Clear Lake's quarterback. Photo by Kim Webb.

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The Elmwood/Plum City cooperative prep football team was a double winner last weekend.

Not only did EPC win its first-ever contest 37-6 Friday at Clear Lake, but they also won a game in advance too.

Cornell High school announced it would not have enough players to finish out the regular season. Thus all their remaining games this season will be forfeits.

Just down the road (Hwy. 27) from Cornell is Cadott. They too have similar numbers problems and also cancelled their varsity season as well.

EPC was scheduled to play at Cornell on Sept. 28. However, EPC will not have a bye week. Cornell and Cadott have combined what remains of their varsity teams and will play an exhibition schedule of five games for the rest of the season, one of them being against EPC Sept. 28 in Cornell. The games won’t count against their opponents’ records.

All of this has EPC head coach Jerry Hannack very glad a co-op between Elmwood and Plum City was formed for this season so similar situation of injuries and low turnouts did not happen to either school. Cornell had been trying to find co-op partners for several years but they could find no one to partner with, including their rivals up the road Lake Holcombe, who turned them down flat for a varsity level co-op (they are a co-op for junior high football).

“You’ve got to put your ego aside and put the kids first,” Hannack said. “What’s been most pleasing about the whole co-op process is people in both communities have kept sight of this.”

Despite the two early and painful losses to rivals Spring Valley and

Alma/Pepin, the jelling process for EPC is just about complete as witnessed by their big win over the Warriors on the road.

EPC will play Plum City’s portion of Homecoming this week (Elmwood’s is next week) against Boyceville and Hannack knows the Bulldogs will provide a strict measure of EPC’s progress. The Bulldogs, 2-1 overall, will also be coming off an 18-8 loss to Mondovi and won’t be in the best of moods.

“They’re very physical and tough and we’re going to have to match them to be able to move the ball and subsequently stop them,” Hannack said. “If we can’t, they’re just going to hold the ball and grind us up. Hopefully we’ll be able to withstand them and use our speed for to create big plays which can even the odds.”

Also tonight, Spring Valley is looking for its first Dunn-St. Croix win against Colfax; Ellsworth is at home vs. Baldwin-Woodville and Prescott will try to hand Osceola its first loss this season at Osceola.

Tags: prep football, sports, prep