Football: Packers hope to get on track against Owatonna

Published 8:35 pm Wednesday, September 16, 2015

If the Austin football team wants to host its first postseason contest since 2005, the time is now for it start winning.

The Packers (0-4 overall) sit two games behind Northfield and Rochester John Marshall for a first round home seed in the Section 1AAAA tournament with four games left on the schedule and Austin will have to pick up some momentum when it hosts Owatonna 7 p.m. Friday if it wants a chance to make a move in the standings.

“We just want to start getting on the right track,” Austin head coach Brett Vesel said.

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Owatonna (3-1 overall) has outscored its opponents 30.5-18.0 per game this season and it knocked off Rochester John Marshall 27-21 in double overtime in week two of the season.

The Huskies are coming off a 34-23 win over Northfield that saw Sam Hylie run for 177 yards.

The Packers saw Owatonna twice last season and they lost both match ups — including a season ending loss in the first round of the Section 1AAAAA tournament. Vesel said he is expecting Owatonna to look similar to what it has been in seasons past.

“They’re the same old team. They run the same stuff and they’re good at it,” Vesel said. “We’re going to have to really go out and execute to win this game. They’re a team that’s won some games, and we’re a team that needs to win some games.”

The Packers put forth their best effort of the season two weeks ago when they lost 26-21 at No. 8 Rochester Mayo, but Vesel felt the team took a step back when it lost 56-18 to No. 1 Mankato West last week.

“Last game we didn’t tackle well. After watching the film we saw a lot of missed tackles and we had a lot of dropped balls,” Vesel said. “We’ve got to run the ball harder. I thought the offensive line actually did a pretty good job [against West] after watching the film, we’ve just got to run the ball harder when we get in there.”