Things snowballed out of control quickly for Central Plains in last year’s Week 2 matchup with Victoria. 

The Knights returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown en route to a 62-12 win over the Oilers in Victoria. 

“It was a great sock in the gut, but it was a real eye-opener,” Central Plains coach J.D. Johnson said. “Our guys realized if we were going to compete in districts, let alone playoffs, we had a lot of changes to make.”

Central Plains made the necessary adjustments by season’s end, putting together an incredible run of comeback playoff victories to make the state title game before falling to Hoxie. 

The Oilers are eager to see how they stack up with Victoria this time, hosting the Knights on Friday night in a matchup of last year's state runner-ups: Central Plains in Eight-Player Division I and Victoria in Division II.

“It’s great to have this type of test,” Johnson said. “Win or lose, we can learn so much from it.”

The Knights and Oilers both rolled to mercy-rule wins in their openers. Victoria beat Ness City 50-0 while Central Plains handed Macksville a 46-0 loss. Central Plains is ranked No. 3 in Division I and Victoria No. 2 in Division II by KSHSAA Covered. 

Victoria returned the core of last year’s team but has a new quarterback in Wyatt Schmidtberger. 

“He was a backup for us last year but it’s certainly a different seat to sit in when you’re the guy,” Victoria coach Doug Oberle said. “Still a work in progress, but I thought he had a pretty good game against Ness.”

Wes Dreiling also joined Kyle Huser and Cody Schmidtberger on Victoria’s offensive line. The Knights are set up well in the backfield with junior Weston Scherrer,  who ran for 1,058 yards and 17 TDs last year, and senior Matt Pfeifer, who added 770 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground. Ethan VonLintel leads a balanced receiving corps and is Victoria’s top pass rusher on defense. 

Central Plains had to replace key skill players including Joel Schreiber and Eli Hurley in the backfield. But Richard Stroud has shown promise taking over at the Oilers’ feature back. 

Three-year starting quarterback Brodie Crites is primed for a big junior season for the Oilers. He threw for three touchdowns in the Oilers’ opener. Peyton Dody and Rylan Siemsen are the Central Plains’ top receivers. 

Crites finished with 1,333 yards passing and 18 TDs as a sophomore.

“Great kid, great player,” Johnson said. “Just a sponge out there, always asking questions.”

The matchup features two of the state's top eight-man lineman in Huser and Landon Daniels. 

The Victoria offense largely revolves around the four-year starter Huser, a 6-foot-3, 275-pound center. 

“Any coach will tell you, especially at the eight-man level, if you can have a center that can handle one-on-one blocks and put us in the right positions, that’s invaluable,” Oberle said. “It just allows us to be more creative up front with how we block things. He’s worked his tail off to get to where he is and whatever accolades he acquires are well-earned.”

Daniels, a 6-foot, 232-pound senior, anchors the Oilers’ offensive line, joined by Peyton Kempke and Cameron Zink. 

“The Daniels kid is just an absolute player,” Oberle said. “He’s as good an offensive lineman as we’ll see throughout the year. Those three guys really set the table for them. They’re physical, really good-sized kids that move people. They’re very athletic behind them. And you can run whatever you want when you have a kid like (Crites). He’s a very heady kid.”

Johnson said the Oilers played well up front last week but “this will be a different monster on Friday. We’ll be facing, in my mind, one of the best O-linemen and D-linemen in Kyle Huser. He’s just a phenomenal football player.”

“We have to match their physicality, and we struggled to do that the last two years,” Johnson added. “Doug is one of the best and he gets his boys firing on all cylinders. With Kyle Huser up front, and those tanks in the backfield, you have to figure out a way to slow up their run game.”

“We have to establish our offensive line and our backs will have to run solid,” Oberle said. “We’re not running away from anybody, we don’t have great team speed, so we have to get what we can get and don’t get fancy.”

Victoria has won the last six matchups against its Central Prairie League foe. 

“They’re a good team and if we don’t play well they’ll hand it to us,” Oberle said of the Oilers. “We’ve had some pretty good results the last couple years, so I know they’re hungry and I know they’ll be ready to play.”