Tough tests prepare Mooseheart for playoffs

Updated: October 24, 2011 9:42PM

The last three weeks, the 2011 version of the Mooseheart Red Ramblers were on a run toward adding on to a great tradition of football at The Child City. Reaching the playoffs for the fourth time in six years, winning a conference championship and finishing the regular season unbeaten and hosting a playoff game for the first time since 1996 were all attained.

Now, this team can create its own legacy.

The 1996 team lost in the first round, leaving the 10-1 1985 team as the standard bearer for the program.

In its history, the Red Ramblers are 1-8 in the IHSA playoffs, with the lone victory coming in its first game — an 18-8 victory over North Shore Country Day in 1985.

“We’re not taking anything for granted.” said Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler, who played on that ’85 team. “We truly have not been very successful in playoff runs, and we’re doing what we can to stay with our normal structure and focus and do what we do every week and treating this no differently.”

What Urwiler believes will help his team’s cause in that regard is that the Red Ramblers enter this postseason having already played playoff-type contests — their last three opponents (combined record 21-6) forced Mooseheart to dig deep to win out.

“It was definitely exciting, to beat all three teams that are headed to the playoffs,” senior QB Jon Hart said. “We definitely had to step up our football this last week especially and play at a higher level. It definitely challenged us and it made us a better team.”

Mooseheart is anchored by a defense that allows just 7.4 points per game while the pistol spread option offense — orchestrated with aplomb by Hart — is capable of both exploding for touchdowns or grinding out close victories.

It’s a winning formula the team has crafted since the summer and one the team hopes to sustain going forward.

“All I can say is ‘practice makes perfect,’” Red Ramblers running back Oumaru Abdulahi said. “I’m not expecting to just blow this whole week off and then go play Princeville and expect to win. We have to stick to the same routine. I know there’s a lot of hype, but we need to focus and stay out of that and just continue what we’ve done this whole season.”

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