Robert Brewer/MDN Nedrose senior running back Cameron Bailey (2) tries to break through a pile during a Cardinals home game against Rugby earlier this season. Nedrose went on to win that game 19-14 to clinch a berth in the 11B State Playoff Tournament.

Nedrose High School’s varsity football squad has come a long way since its challenging 2018 campaign.

Three years ago, the Cardinals, in just their second season with varsity status, finished their regular season with a 3-5 record and were matched up, in their first-ever postseason appearance, against the 8-0 fourth-ranked Bowman County Bulldogs.

Nedrose’s stay in the postseason was brief, as the overmatched Cardinals fell by a 55-8 final score to a Bowman team that would advance as far as the semifinals of the 2018 NDHSAA Division A State Tournament.

Three years later, fourth-seeded Nedrose finds itself staring down a rematch with the Bulldogs, again in the first round of the 2021 NDHSAA 11B State Playoffs.

This time, though, the Cardinals are in much better shape. The team is riding the momentum of a 5-3 regular season that provided much more from which Nedrose can draw encouragement. Head coach Tommy Weidler praised his student-athletes’ tireless work ethic and the roles each played in growing the program.

“We did a lot of good things,” Weidler said. “I’m really happy with the way we played. We were in every game and had opportunities to win the games we lost. The guys did enough in the couple of tight battles to win those games.”

In the first week of the season, the Cardinals took the Des Lacs-Burlington Lakers, now the second seed out of Region 3 entering the playoffs, to double-overtime and fell by a heartbreaking 14-12 final score to begin the season.

Nedrose was unfazed and rattled off wins in each of its next four contests, outscoring South Prairie-Max, Westhope/Newburg/Glenburn, Stanley and New Town by an aggregate 169-32. Three of those wins were by shutout, and the only 32 points the Cardinals surrendered came in a 33-32 thriller against Glenburn on the road.

“It was just a continued ‘Let’s get back to work Monday.’ We learned from the loss, and learned from the win, but we always were ready Monday to start to try and be 1-0 that week,” Weidler added. “The seniors did a great job of leading by example and practicing the way you should in order to have success.”

The final three games of the season brought with them some difficulties for the group, as the Cardinals went 1-2 against Rugby and fellow postseason participants Velva/Garrison and Bishop Ryan.

A lack of execution at crucial times was the key factor in the defeats, Weidler said, and he admitted that moral victories serve little purpose in the long run for a football team, but the coaching staff was encouraged by Nedrose’s ability to compete with programs that would have dismantled the team just a few short years ago.

At the helm of an evolved Cardinals group is junior quarterback Josh Kalamaha, who completed his first regular season under center at the varsity level.

He drew from his experience at quarterback for the junior-varsity team the last two years and led the team to its second consecutive winning season after Nedrose won just seven of its first 26 games at the varsity level from 2017-19.

“He’s made a lot of good strides throughout the year,” Weidler said of his signal-caller. “He’s watched film all the time and sometimes he’s probably the hardest critic on himself, always trying to get better.”

Kalamaha and his teammates will spend the next week glued to screens displaying footage from Bowman’s fall slate, a team that plays with great physicality and whose defense is its calling card. Throughout their nine-game schedule, the 8-1 Bulldogs limited their opposition to single-digits in all but two contests. Those two? A 26-13 win over Killdeer in Week 4 and a 13-6 Week 5 loss to Shiloh Christian.

In addition to the in-game challenges the Cardinals will face in the Oct. 23 first-round matchup, Nedrose will also have to weather the storm of a hostile crowd and a four-hour bus ride one way down to Bowman, North Dakota.

“They’re a well-coached team that is big and physical,” Weidler said. “They spread the ball out a little bit and do a lot of really good things. Bowman tries to put you in bad spots defensively. We’re going to have to have good focus all week and prepare the best we can for them.”