Tonight the A-D-M Tigers battle the Spencer Tigers in the first round of the 2012 Iowa High School Football Class 3A playoffs.

A-D-M started off the season with five straight wins but has dropped three of their last four but only by a combined 11 points including last Friday’s overtime loss to eventual District champion Harlan. A-D-M has made the playoffs in five consecutive seasons and 7 of the last 8 and can reverse their late season struggles with a win over Spencer.

The Tigers will rely heavily on Senior tailback Jordan Grove. Grove led Class 3A in rushing for most of the season until a hip injury suffered three weeks ago slowed him down. Grove ended up second in rushing in Class 3A and looked almost 100% last Friday against Harlan.

A-D-M will also rely heavily on Senior Quarterback Kyle Herrick, Herrick has thrown for seventeen hundred and eighty two yards and 14 touchdowns while Junior Tate Jensen leads the Tigers in receiving with 29 catches for 642 yards for an average of 22 yards per catch and he’s scored 6 touchdowns.

Defensively, A-D-M is led by a trio of Seniors, Dylan Nelson leads the team in tackles with 71 solos and Sam Plagman (Plow-man) is second with 56 solo tackles and Blake Heiman (Hy-man) leads the defense with 4 interceptions. The trio will look to control Spencer’s full house backfield attack which has rolled up over twenty seven hundred yards rushing led by Matt Finnern’s 1,115. Spencer looks to be one dimensional having thrown just 49 passes with only 19 completions all season.

Both teams enter the game with 6-3 records, the winner will advance to the second round and face the winner of Sioux City Heeland & Creston next Monday night. You can hear all the action tonight on “Real Country” K-107.9, part of the Raccoon Valley Radio Network. Kickoff is set for 7pm with pre-game at 6.