By TOM BONE
GARDNER — PikeView High School has returned to the Class AA football playoffs for the first time since 1996, but quarterback Ben Nester isn’t satisfied — and neither are some of his classmates and teachers.
The team has received widespread congratulations for their playoff-clinching 7-3 record, he said on Tuesday. But there’s another message mixed in.
“Keep up the hard work,” he said he’s been hearing. “They’d like to see us go far this year.”
That would start with a first-round win for the twelfth-seeded Panthers at No. 5 Westside (9-1) in Wyoming County on Friday night.
Nester said it can be done.
“It’s going to take a lot of heart, dedication, hitting hard — and just the ‘want-to.’ The want-to to win,” he said.
“I’m ready, mentally and physically,” he said. “But we’ve got to have a good week of practice this week, and the team’s got to be ready to have my back on this one.”
The winning record, after a 7-73 mark in the previous eight years, has “meant a lot” to the PikeView community, the junior signal-caller said. “I think our team’s worked hard, and they deserve it. I really do.”
The Panthers have done it not only by changing up their ball distribution on offense, but also by pulling together.
“Well, it takes a team effort, first of all,” Nester said. “It takes the line blocking up front, it takes the fullback going hard through the holes, and it takes the wide receivers outside blocking their man, every single play, for this offense to be successful.”
“In the past, our offense has mostly been power, power, power. This kind of spreads it out, gives it to the fullback, or the quarterback keeping it, or the halfback taking it down the sidelines. So it kind of evens it out, and shares the ball a little bit more.”
The defense has responded “tremendously,” he said. “Our linebackers are filling their holes, our secondary is watching the pass, our linemen up front are getting a good push. I think we’ve done a good job of hitting hard, up front, and gang tackling well.”
“We modified our defense a little bit (for this season), but mostly it’s been the same strategy — just more intensity.”
Season-opening victories over Meadow Bridge and Iaeger — which also made the playoffs — accelerated the attitude change on the practice field in Gardner.
“I could tell, after about the first couple of games,” he said. “We started out 2-0, and we started playing real well together and our unity actually started coming together as a team.”
Nester’s season took a turn for the worse on Sept. 25, when he hurt his left foot against Shady Spring.
“I just kept playing on it, and didn’t take time off to get well,” he said. “But I think our open week (in mid-October) and the next couple of games have kind of helped me out, where I haven’t re-injured it. So I’m ready for this game.”
He downplayed the injury on Tuesday. “I think I’m coming back at about 100 percent,” he said. “I’m ready for this game. I’m pumped up. I’m better now.”
He is particularly happy for his teammates in the senior class, who have tasted a winning season record for the first time.
“I think it’s been great. I really do,” he said. “I’d just like to go out and play hard for them, for their last couple of games here at PikeView.”
A preview of the PikeView-Westside game will be included later this week in the Daily Telegraph.
