Hanover Wildcat Football Team

A State title just eluded the Hanover Wildcats the in 2015 and 2014 but this year the Wildcats were on the mission again to vie for the State title and capture it for the first time since 2009 and that they did with a 68-22 win over Dighton in the 8-Man Division II State title game.

The title matchup was tight early but after it was 14-14 Hanover scored the next 20 points before halftime to lead 34-14 and outscored Dighton 34-8 in the second half to secure the win via point-rule with 7:36 left in the game as Kevin Diederich returned an interception 14-yards for the final score. Diederich finished the day with the defensive score on top of four other touchdowns rushing for 43 yards on seven carries with two touchdowns and caught three passes for 93 yards for two scores. Will Bruna finished 13-19 for 234 yards with three touchdowns, while Carter Bruna added 87 yards on 11 carries with four touchdowns.

The Wildcats worked their way through the playoffs with a 38-12 win over St. John’s-Tipton in the first round then routed Hutchinson-Central Christian 62-6 in Regionals and beat Pike Valley 48-0 in Sub-State to return to State game for the third straight year.

On the year Hanover was dominate winning 10 of their 12 games before playing a full four quarters via the 45-point rule as the offense averaged 51.3 points per game and the defense gave up six points per game. The Wildcat defense was suffocating holding most of their regular season foes to just around 100 total yards of offense in each game, while posting five shutouts and giving up just 72 points on the year.

Hanover closed out the season 12-0 and 8-Man DII State champs and won the Twin Valley League 8-Man title for the third straight year, while stretching their TVL win streak to 14-straight games and regular season win streak to 26-straight games.