The Lakers (9-3) are far from a spread team, as they attempted six passes in the game, with a majority of those coming after they were down three touchdowns. The Huskies (12-0) proved to be the stronger team on the ground, as they outran the Lakers 282-132 in total rushing yards.

A bulk of those yards — 182 to be exact — came from Gabriel Wolff. The senior back said he and his teammates embrace this kind of weather and tough running style.

“This is where the mental game comes in strong, and that’s where we thrive,” Wolff said. “Not only is it a physical game, but we try to beat teams down mentally.”

The weather may have helped the Huskies on Thursday, but they won’t be upset to be in a weather-controlled environment next week.

“You can’t complain when you’re at [U.S.] Bank [Stadium],” Wolff said.

On the other side of the ball, Schuller said his team’s main focus defensively was slowing down Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted’s Collin Boese. The Huskies pulled out all of the stops this week in practice to try to make that happen. Though Boese ran the ball 19 times, the Huskies held him to 56 yards.

“(Boese) is one of the fastest kids we’ve faced this year so we knew we had a challenge to keep him contained and for the most part we did,” Schuller said. “We had one of our fast coaches suit up this week and I asked him if he’s as fast as (Boese) and he said, ‘Not anymore.’ It was a good simulation for when we came out here.”

The running game is the biggest strength for Jackson County Central, but both Schuller and Wolff insist the offense isn’t one-dimensional.

“We throw the ball just fine when we want to,” Schuller said. “Today we didn’t really want to under these conditions.”

Wolff agreed, noting his team is strong both in the air and on the ground. Since the ground game seemed to be working, Wolff said, they kept with it.

As for the Lakers, their season ends in the state quarterfinals a year after going 0-9. First-year head coach Adam Birkholz said his players made it easy for him to turn things around.

“The guys came in, played extremely hard,” Birkholz said. “They’re super coachable. We couldn’t ask for a better group of guys.”