September 17, 2021 – Slinger, WI – With the North Shore Conference still wide open, the West Bend East Suns (1-3, 0-2) will play the Slinger Owls (2-1, 1-1) in Friday night high school football.
Slinger is coming off an 20-14 upset win on the road against Homestead last week, ending the latter’s undefeated season in the process.
Meanwhile, West Bend East fell to Hartford at home 35-14 last week and have now been outscored 70-23 in their first two conference games. Slinger will be looking to avenge itself against West Bend East as they have lost their last two games to the Suns, including a 31-0 shutout loss to close out the 2020 season.
Neither team is known as an offensive force, with both the Owls and Suns ranking near the bottom of the North Shore Conference in terms of points scored this season, generating 54 and 46 total points respectively.
Paradoxically, the Suns have a potent passing attack, especially from a ball movement perspective, as junior quarterback Peyton Fountain has the second most passing yards in the conference with 509, and the second most passing attempts with 90.
However, this air raid offense comes with the drawback that although Fountain has completed 44.4% of his passes, he has thrown just two touchdowns and six interceptions, the latter of which leads the conference.
The Owls are a team that emphasizes the run game which is led by junior Avery Kurth, who has 63 carries for 450 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns. Kurth is also the team’s primary receiver having caught 6 passes for 72 yards and all three of senior quarterback Drew Fehrman’s passing touchdowns this season.
The defense is clearly Slinger’s bread and butter, as the Owls have 250 total tackles, which may come at the expense of some of the “sexy” defensive stats like sacks and turnovers (2 sacks, 1 fumble recovery and 2 interceptions respectively), but the ability to execute basic fundamentals well like tackling requires field and player awareness definitely impact the scoreboard.
That level of defensive discipline is something the Suns will need to copy as they play an Owls team that hasn’t scored fewer than 14 points all season, while the haven’t scored more than 14 points in a game this season.
The game is scheduled to take place in Slinger on Friday, September 17, 2021 with a 7 p.m. kickoff.