Spartan football shuts out Redhawks for district title

GRUNDY CENTER – Trent Cakerice called his shot on Friday.

"I was talking to my friends during fourth period today and said, 'Man, you know what I need today is an interception,'" Cakerice said.

All day long, visions of North Tama screen passes danced in the Grundy Center sophomore lineman's head.

When he lined up with his teammates across from the Redhawks on Friday night, the time had come.

"I was ready for it."

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On North Tama's first drive of the second half, he jumped up to snag a checkdown pass attempt by the Redhawks for his first varsity interception.

"I didn't think I had it at first, I was bobbling it," Cakerice said. "Then fight or flight kicked in and I just ran."

His return set up the Spartans for the first of two third-quarter touchdown runs by Logan Knaack as Grundy Center rolled to the Class A District 3 title, 28-0 victors over North Tama.

The Spartans finished the regular season with a 7-1 overall record, and a perfect 6-0 against District 3.

"I'm so proud of him," Grundy Center head coach Travis Zajac said of Cakerice. "He was a freshman last year, part of that group that was so good up front, and he watched those guys do their thing, and I think he learned some lessons. … He's just a big, strong guy who's very coachable."

Before the interception though, Zajac felt like the Spartans were already well on their way to a successful second half.

After making a goal-line stop before halftime to preserve a 7-0 advantage, the Spartans took the ball to start the second half and completed an 11-play drive with a six-yard Dayne Zinkula run to take a 14-0 lead with 7:45 left in the third.

"We were moving the ball with some pretty good success in the first half, but when we got caught behind the chains we were struggling with them sitting on our pass game," Zajac said. "To score on that opening drive was a big, big moment."

After Knaack cashed in on Cakerice's interception, Dayne Zinkula added another pick on a pass thrown behind a North Tama receiver that deflected into Zinkula's hands. A long return set up Grundy just outside the red zone again, and Knaack left no doubt with a 27-yard scamper on the first play of the drive, and push the momentum all the way to the home side.

Knaack felt having Brayden Sawyer and Dayne Zinkula back in the lineup made a big difference on the offensive output Friday. Sawyer was recently sidelined with a hamstring injury, Zinkula missed time with an ailing ankle.

"Our linemen stepped up and having Brayden back's a huge part of that," Knaack said. "He makes everything go, and for the guys to follow him helped out a lot. … And Dayne coming back again was huge."

Knaack started the scoring on a 3-yard strike to Colin Gordon in the first quarter on the Spartans' first offensive drive of the game after forcing a North Tama punt.

The Redhawks were inside Grundy's 30-yard line for all but one first-half drive, and inside the red zone for the last two drives of the half, but came away with zero points.

"We needed to get off the blocks and make plays," Cakerice said. "We were practicing hard all week and you could tell there was a level up there in intensity."

Knaack added a third interception for the Spartan defense to close out the game on a Redhawk double-pass attempt, one of several trick plays North Tama attempted to deploy throughout Friday's contest as part of the Redhawks' aerial assault led by dual-threat quarterback Gabe Kopriva.

"[Defensive Coordinator Chris] Coach Conger has us prepared every week," Knaack said. "It's just up to us to execute his game plan. And we couldn't take a play off, because we knew North Tama wouldn't."

The Spartans are guaranteed to host at least one playoff game as district champions, based on limited knowledge shared by the Iowa High School Athletic Association about how the playoffs will operate this fall. The playoff field was expanded back to 32 teams this year.

Before the game, Grundy Center honored its 10 seniors for the final regular-season home contest.

"We're a championship-caliber football program, and the 2021 team is a championship-caliber team," Zajac said. "But we've got to go back out there and prove it, starting again next Friday. We're going to pour all our efforts into our kids to make sure they're ready to go."

GC 28, NT 0

First quarter

GC--Colin Gordon 3 pass from Logan Knaack (Gordon kick)

Third quarter

GC--Dayne Zinkula 6 run (Gordon kick)

GC--Knaack 8 run (Gordon kick)

GC--Knaack 27 run (Gordon kick)