The ADM Tigers face the 9th-ranked Carroll Tigers on the road tonight in the first round of the Class 3-A district playoffs.

The Tigers enter postseason play on a three game losing streak, but Carroll head coach Dennis McCarten says his team won’t be fooled by ADM’s late-season woes.  After all, last year Carroll was the team with no expectations heading into a first-round matchup with Harlan, and they ended up pulling off the shocking upset.

“I see ADM is kind of a mirror of us.  We struggled a little bit last year but kept the games pretty close… And anybody can beat anybody especially on a Wednesday night on a short turnaround week.  They’re high school kids, you know 16-18 years old, so emotions are high and if one or two things happen, the game can change in a hurry.”

Although both ADM and Carroll start over with new 0-0 records to being postseason play, the opposing Tigers’ regular season resume is impressive.  Carroll finished 7-2 on the year, with their only two losses coming to the top ranked teams in Class 3-A and 2-A.

If ADM wants to move on to the next round of postseason play, the Tigers will have to find a way to hit on big plays and score points against Carroll’s dominant defense tonight.  Their defensive unit has combined for 56 ½ tackles for loss and 20 sacks this season, seemingly living in opposing backfields.

“I think our team starts and ends up front with our defense.  We feel like we’ve been very good defensively against everybody that we’ve played… the kids, they really get after it up there and that starts with our front four on defense–they’re as aggressive anybody,” McCarten says.

See if ADM’s O-Line can stave off that Carroll pressure and provide opportunities for Grant Goeden on the ground and Kolby Whisner through the air this evening.

We’ll have pregame coverage of Tigers vs. Tigers starting at 6:30 on 107.9FM, KKRF.