LE MARS, IOWA (KCAU) – Week One for our high school football teams is officially in the books, with the Le Mars Bulldogs earning a big win on the road led by our SportsZone Player of the Week, brought to you by Nelson Commercial Construction. The Le Mars two-way talent notched 268 total yards of offense and four touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ win over Sergeant Bluff-Luton.

This week at practice, Kasel spoke on his Week 1 performance, but noted how his stats aren’t the most important part of the game.

“I just want to go out there and win games with my teammates. That’s the big goal with everybody, you want to win games and you want to make the playoffs. I think that’s what helped,” Kasel said.

Kasel’s big game was a product of his offseason work as Le Mars head coach Ken Vigdal emphasized how his senior quarterback has transformed his game ahead of the 2023 season.

“Just going back a year, he was a game manager a year ago for this team. Now this year, he is a playmaker. That’s what he has done over the summer and throughout things. So, he was able to get us out of a couple of holes. He threw some great balls down field, he was able to throw short passes and long passes. Then, of course, he had two runs. One was close to 70 yards. So, there was no difference…he was a game changer in the game on Friday,” Vigdal mentioned.

Le Mars accomplished what a lot of teams aim to do in Week 1, and that’s start off with a victory. The team mentioned how the win gave them an early confidence boost.

“It’s huge, it’s really good. But, you’ve got to focus on the next week. It does not matter, win or loss, what happened last week. You’re always focused on the next week,” Kasel highlighted.

The Bulldogs spoke on how they’re building toward their goals and using their Week 1 momentum to prepare for its home game on Friday night against Sioux City North.

“Every week, our main goal is to have energy and play hard. If you have energy and play hard every game, you have a chance to win it, regardless of what happens. You can make mistakes, but if you’re going hard, you make up for those mistakes a lot of the time. So, our big goal is going hard and having a lot of energy,” Kasel said.

“It’s early in the year and you have a nice win. But, you’re grounded and saying ‘okay, we have north coming into town this week.’ So now, it’s time to get back to work and forget a little about last week and now we have to prepare for this week,” Vigdal highlighted.