Cape Central’s road back to final four begins with Mehlville

After a final four appearance in 2022, the Cape Central Tigers are set to embark on yet another postseason journey.

The road back to the final four for the Tigers begins at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27, when the Tigers (6-3) host Mehville (0-9) to open Class 5 District 1 play.

“We’ve been telling them since last Friday night that they have to understand that they are 0-0,” Tigers coach Kent Gibbs said. “We have to come out with the mindset in practice of trying to get better and we’ve done that so far.”

While the mindset is focused on everyone has the same record, Gibbs hopes his team will still carry the momentum from the four-game winning streak they closed the regular season with.

“I think you want to take the momentum that you get from the season and your improved play that you’re looking for each week,” Gibbs said. “But, at the end of the day, your feelings towards your opponent can’t be one way or the other. We need to go out and do what we need to do.”

One advantage the Tigers have this season is experience in big games.

“I think experience means a lot,” Gibbs said. “I think you can start to see the dynamics change with some of the kids knowing what’s in front of them. I think the experience factor is a big deal for us and I look to those guys that played a big role to take care of some of the things that may come up.”

Gibbs feels if the Tigers are to win, it will be because they continued doing what they did to close the regular season.

“From the defensive perspective we have to be able to stop the run,” Gibbs said. “On the offensive side we want to be able to run the football. We’ve basically used this week to go back to some fundamentals and get a little bit better with some things that we think are important.”

Ever since the Farmington game on Sept. 29, the Tigers defense has been much improved, allowing just 35 points in the last four games.

“I think we went back to the basics,” Gibbs said. “We just went back to proper alignments and assignments and emphasizing that because honestly we didn’t play good defense for a while. We’ve been getting a little bit better but we still have a long way to go.”

The Tigers have also used practice time to become a more balanced team on offense.

“In practice we would run the ball probably 75 percent of the time,” Gibbs said. “We’ve made that more of a 50/50 thing in practice the last couple weeks in hopes to jump start (the passing game.)”

Gibbs and his staff feel the game will be won by being disciplined.

“We need to cut down on our mistakes,” Gibbs said. “The penalty issues are a big deal.”