By Adam Roberts – 4/19/2021
To whoever coined the phrase “The times, they are a-changin'”, you clearly haven’t paid the G-E-T area a visit.
When the Redhawks take the field, it’s no secret what head coach Jon Steffenhagen’s plan is: run the ball down your throat, and we dare you to stop up. Over the years, their Coulee/South Central Conference foes have had the same lesson drilled into their heads over and over, and yet the yards just keep piling up. This year’s primary numbers guy for GET is senior Luke Vance, who as the title mentioned is turning heads with his production. The 265 yards he accumulated against Black River Falls were a part of his second 200+ yard performance this season, and not even the highest of his career; remember he ran for 290 yards and three scores against Aquinas in the 2019 postseason.
At that time, Vance was competing with senior Bryce Burns for touches, and still ran for over 130 a game and 1,431 yards on the year. This year he’s sharing reps with Brady Seiling and still putting up comparable numbers to Burns. Ultimately, assuming he doesn’t go for 328 against Arcadia this week, Luke won’t hit the 1,000 yard mark this season, but given that GET only plays five games the fact we’re even mentioning it as a possibility speaks volumes about what he’s accomplished. In basically one and a half seasons of varsity football, Vance is already over 2,000 yards for his career, and let’s also not forget: football is his secondary sport. Vance is a runner first and foremost, and would be running the 200 and 100 meter dashes and long jumping for GET right now in a normal year.
GET and Arcadia entered last week both ranked in the medium and small school divisions respectfully on Wissports.net, and will get a rare second chance to face each other this week. Make sure to keep your eye out for #24 in the red and blue.