The #2 Indianola football squad will face off with their fifth ranked opponent in six games tonight, on the road against Warren County rival #9 Norwalk in district play. Indianola is tops among several categories offensively in class 4A, and their defense has given up just nine points in the last two weeks, shutting out Perry and allowing just nine points to #5 Lewis Central. Head coach Eric Kluver tells KNIA Sports Norwalk is always a tough challenge because they have stellar athletes, good coaching, and solid fundamentals, so the Indians will again have to be at the top of their game.

“We can’t break down in coverage and let a receiver run wide open and give them free touchdowns. Our defense will be ready to go, but they will have to tackle in space a good, big quarterback. Their offense will go through him, so we’ll have to do a good job of pressuring him and also tackling him when he wants to run the ball.”
Norwalk’s only blemish on their record came at the hands of Lewis Central, while the Warriors feature fearsome dual-threat quarterback Landon Hochstein who has over 1,300 yards on the season, and a trio of receivers with over 200 yards each. Head coach Paul Patterson says the Warriors will have to force Indianola to play into their gameplan.

“They want to establish the fun, that’s the way they’ve always been under Erik (Kluver) and they want to continue to try and pound the rock. That’s the big thing that we’ve gotta make sure we are able to focus in on and if we can get that stop, then we’ve got a chance in other areas to make them one-dimensional. If they can run the football, then they open up everything that they are able to do, get Kingery loose and maybe even some of the guys that they like to get into the flat and take advantage of some coverage issues there if we are focusing heavily on the run because we are having a tough time stopping it. We have to be able to stop the run from a defensive standpoint.”

The game can be heard live on 94.3 KNIA and the Norwalk Activities Youtube video stream with Andrew Swadner and Jon Mohwinkle on the play-by-play. Pregame coverage begins at 6:30pm, with kickoff set for 7:30.