-Messenger photo by Britt Kudla Quinten McCarville of St. Edmond

RUTHVEN — The St. Edmond football team puts a cap on their first season of eight-player here Friday night vs. GTRA.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from the Ruthven-Ayrshire Athletic Complex.

For Matt Dillon, it has been as unusual year as he’s ever experienced on the sidelines.

“You expect injuries in football, but the amount of abnormal injuries we’ve had has been incredible,” Dillon said. “Guys with broken hands and different issues. But I give our team a lot of credit for battling through it and sticking it out.”

St. Edmond (2-5 overall, 1-4) will be without starting quarterback JT Laufersweiler and freshman Adam Walker this week. Other than that, Dillon feels the team is as healthy as they have been.

“We’ve had to mix-and-match a lot with our lineups,” he said. “We’ll try to do that again to the best of our abilities.”

Caleb Schaeffer, who missed time with his own injury this year, has thrown for 671 yards with 10 touchdowns, adding 182 yards and four scores on the ground. He has a stable of talented receivers in Quinten McCarville, Isaac Landwehr and Johnny Dickerson to work with, along with Tyler Rossmanith out of the backfield.

McCarville, Landwehr and Rossmanith are among a senior class that started out with Dillon in his first year with the program.

“It’s been a lot of fun being around this group,” Dillon said. “Quinten was a kid that I had to really push to make that first JV game, but he’s turned into a great player. Isaac is one that really came on here in the last year-plus and became one of our best players on both sides of the ball.

“Kids like Cayne Reed, Tyler and others from that senior class have been so important in our development as a program.”

GTRA (6-1, 4-1) is coming off a convincing 54-16 victory over Bishop Garrigan. The Titans lost for the first time two weeks ago to Harris-Lake Park, 29-0.

Prior to that setback, GTRA reeled off wins over Kingsley-Pierson, Glidden-Ralston, Northwood-Kensett, North Iowa and West Bend-Mallard, topping the 42-point mark four times during that stretch.

Junior Max Hough has followed up a productive sophomore season by surpassing the 1,000-yard mark both throwing the ball and running it. Hough is 70-for-130 for 1,023 yards with 19 touchdowns and just two interceptions, adding 1,023 yards and 11 scores on the ground.

Cormick Currans, a senior, has caught 32 passes for 594 yards and 13 TDs, while junior Drew Schnell has 19 receptions for 262 and four scores. Currans also has 255 yards and six rushing touchdowns.

“Hough is as good a football player as we’ve watched on film this year,” Dillon said. “He’s a throwback-type; he’ll run over you and past you, and he can do it all. We definitely have our work cut out for us on defense.”

The GTRA defense is led by Hough and Jordan Saul. Hough has 11 tackles for loss, Saul has 45.5 stops and Andrew Krall and Bryce Rosacker have a combined 20.5 tackles for loss.

As a team, the Titans have 17 sacks and 62 tackles for loss, forcing 13 turnovers.

This is the most wins for GTRA since they went 6-2 in 2017, coming into this year having won just four games since that season. They did post five consecutive winning marks from 2013-17.