The Lakeview football team hosts Canby in the first round of the section 5A tournament Tuesday at 7 p.m. The playoff matchup is a rematch of the teams’ regular-season finale in which the Lakers won 47-0.

The Lakers’ primary advantage will be their depth of offensive weapons. In the backfield, the duo of Greg Schaefer and Clayton Kosel provide significant challenges for opposing front sevens. Kosel has been the lead back for most of the year, rushing for 14 touchdowns and 1048 yards on nearly 10 yards per carry. He ran for 213 yards and four touchdowns last week against the Lancers.

Schafer also has the potential to make big plays for Lakeview. He rushed for 80 or more yards in four games, including a 90-yard performance last week.

Much of the ground success, however, is opened up by the play of Nathan Fenske. The wide receiver opened the season with four consecutive games with 90 or more receiving yards, including 135 yards and two touchdowns in a signature win over Minneota. Fenske’s numbers have declined in the latter half of the season, but that can be largely attributed to opposing teams having to put him in double coverage to slow him down, Lakeview head coach Scott Hanson said.

“They try to take him away, but it just opens up our run game even more. We know they try to take him away, but we’ve got five, six guys that touch the ball every game and that just makes us more explosive on the offensive end,” Hanson said.

Canby head coach Nick Kockelman echoed the sentiment.

“They’ve got three guys that can score on any play. We just have to do a better job of tackling in the box and staying on our keys.”

For the Lancers, these defensive adjustments are going to start at the line of scrimmage with the play of Johnny Duis, Allen Maldonado, and Cayden Anderson.

“They don’t get a lot of tackles, but they influence a lot of different plays… they’re pretty important to everything we do on defense,” Kockelman said.

Duis and Maldonado have each recorded a sack on the season, while Anderson has recorded two and a forced fumble.

The Canby secondary is also a danger zone for opposing quarterbacks. The Lancers have intercepted opposing quarterbacks 11 times this season. Evan Engesmoe has led the charge with five picks.

Beyond the defense, the Lancers will need to find the end zone if they want to complete the upset. To do this, they’ll lean heavily on their passing game.

Lane Fink has passed for over 1040 yards this season. He’s thrown nine touchdowns and taken in another with his legs. His favorite target has been Nick Wagner, whose 404 receiving yards and five touchdown catches are team-highs. He leads the team in scrimmage yards and touchdowns without even factoring in his 178 yards and a touchdown as a rusher.

Still, the Lakers have no intention of letting Wagner run wild on their home turf.

Defense wins championships, and for the Lakers, that starts with their rock-solid linebacking corps, Hanson said. Justin Timm, Jordan Fischer, and Tucker Fiene lock down the field in between the hash-marks game in and game out. When combined with the five-deep rotation the Lakers have at defensive tackle, picking up yards in between the numbers won’t be easy for the Lancers.

The winner of Tuesday’s game between Lakeview (7-1) and Canby (4-4) will compete in the sectional semifinals Saturday at 3 p.m. They will face the winner of 2-seed Dawson-Boyd and 7-seed MACCRAY’s matchup. Dawson-Boyd would have home-field advantage in the game after defeating both Lakeview and Canby in the regular season en route to a 7-1 record to finish the season.