Tigers look to avenge loss to Pierre in 11AA title game

HURON — Only two football teams are still playing in Class 11AA and the Huron Tigers are one of them.
The Tigers will square off against defending Class 11AA state champion Pierre in this year’s title game at 7:30 p.m. Today at the DakotaDome in Vermillion.
“This is an extremely exciting time for the Huron community and for this team. This is a great moment that this team is embracing,” Huron coach Michael Schmitz said of reaching the state championship game. “This is truly an experience that these kids, coaches and community will remember forever. The atmosphere is electric.”
After getting off to a 3-0 start, which included a victory against top-ranked Harrisburg to move to No. 1 in the Class 11AA rankings, the Tigers hit the skids with four straight losses before rebounding to finish with a split in their final two games.
In the end, Huron just missed finishing with a winning record. It entered the postseason with a 4-5 mark.

“This team only grew tighter with the adversity that it saw,” Schmitz said. “They continued to build together to make this season what it is.”
The four-game losing skid started Sept. 14 with a 34-7 setback against the Governors, who went on to finish the regular season at 7-2. Schmitz is looking for the Tigers to take a little different approach to this matchup, than it did earlier in the season.
“We came out flat against Pierre the first time. We didn’t play our style of football,” he said. “We will make sure that we play the way the Huron Tigers play and leave it all on the field.”
While there won’t be a lot of major changes in Huron’s game plan, a few minor differences couldn’t be seen today at the Dome.
“We have made some tweeks to our schemes a little to put our kids in position to be successful,” Schmitz said. “Offensively we will need to control the ball, and defensively we will need to be aggressive and play fast.”
One of the most notable differences from the first time the two teams met will absence of Walker Schiltz from the Huron backfield. The junior suffered a broken leg during the team’s semi-final matchup against Yankton.
“He is a big part of what we have done this year, but when we play as a team, we can be very good,” Schmitz said. “We will try to rotate kids in to keep them fresh.”
A group of 15 seniors will close their high school careers at the DakotaDome for the Tigers and all have played vital roles in the success of the team this season, according to Schmitz.
“We have such a great group of seniors. They all work hard at their role and play as a team,” he said. “I don’t think it gets any better for these kids to be able to play in the championship game to end their high school careers.”