Simley Runs Over Henry Sibley 21-0

“Our season starts today,” Simley head coach Rex King told the victorious Spartans as the team gathered to celebrate a 21-0 win over visiting Henry Sibley Friday in a Classic Suburban Conference game at Inver Grove Heights.

The Spartans had a lot of firsts Friday night.

It was Simley’s first win of the season, King’s first win as a head coach and the first time most of the upperclassmen on Simley’s team had beaten Henry Sibley. Sibley took the last two contests between the two schools, 43-6 and 28-7.

“It was tough when you start with St. Thomas and Mahtomedi, two of the top three teams in the state,” King said. “It’s tough. But I told our kids, hey, somebody made this schedule and now we start running our type of stuff and teams that are our size in numbers and let’s get after it our way.”

Across the field, Henry Sibley coach Tom Orth had a different message for the Warriors.

“We’ve got to stick together,” Orth said. “Now we hit adversity and how are we going to respond to that? We did not respond well tonight. We didn’t play with the energy we needed. Simley did a nice job with that. When adversity hit we had some guys take short cuts. That’s not going to work. You’ve got to do things the right way and you’ve got to keep working hard and execute. Once we start doing that we’ll be in good shape.”

The Spartans did it with superior line play on both sides of the ball and hard running from backs Micah Barnes, Jake Short, Darion Fletcher and Nick Wanzek.

“We had a lot of runs up the middle that really kind of broke it out for a couple TDs,” said senior lineman Matt Kadrlik. “Our run game was pretty solid tonight. The line was definitely pushing hard. Just acting like cows pushing through.”

Simley led 14-0 at the half, scoring on a 14-yard run by Fletcher and a 37-yard run by Short.

Simley’s defense, meanwhile, dominated the first half, allowing just two first downs to the Warriors. Zack Rivera also intercepted a pass to stop another drive.

“Defensively, we stopped them,” said defensive back/running back Fletcher. “We were flying. … It’s definitely a confidence booster.”

Fletcher intercepted a pass by Henry Sibley’s Dante Grant to set up the Spartans at midfield on the first play of the fourth quarter. From there the Spartans went 50 yards in six plays behind the running power of Barnes, Short and Wanzek. Wanzek scored from inside the two-yard-line with 5:58 to play and Tom Atkins kicked the extra point for a 21-0 Simley lead.

Henry Sibley (0-3) will host Richfield (1-2) in a homecoming contest Friday at 7 p.m.

Simley (1-2) will play at North St. Paul (0-3) Friday at 7 p.m.

Scoring summary

Simley             6          8          0          7          --          21

Henry Sibley   0          0          0          0          --          0

Series scores last six years

2011 – Simley 21, Henry Sibley 0

2010 – Henry Sibley 28, Simley 7

2009 – Henry Sibley 43, Simley 6

2008 – Simley 6, Henry Sibley 3

2007 – Simley 6, Henry Sibley 0

2006 – Simley 28, Henry Sibley 25