By Rich Winter

605 Sports

LOWER BRULE — Opposing defenses have a difficult dilemma when facing Lower Brule.

Stack the box and watch as junior Isaiah Felicia turns on the jets or try to stop Felicia and watch as junior Nate Middletent muscles his way for huge chunks of yards up the middle. Teams have yet to find the formula to stop the run and the Sioux are off to a 5-0 start. 

“I think Nate and Isaiah complement each other really well,” Charles LaRoche, Lower Brule football coach, said. “We start with Nate running the ball up the middle and we want to be physical. We’re fine just running it and if we don’t bust one we don’t panic. In the second half we hit them with Isaiah and freshman running back Kristian Antelope. Our backs complement each other and they all do something different.”

Felicia has 15 carries this season for 259 yards (17.5 yards per carry) and five touchdowns. Middletent has 29 carries for 450 yards (15.5 yards per carry) and a team-leading nine touchdowns. 

Middletent, a 6-foot-1, 230-pound bruiser, is built on Lower Brule football tradition as his father, Kansas, and uncle Kyal were standouts on Lower Brule teams in the early 2000s. 

“I enjoy getting to share my experience with my dad,” Nate Middletent said. “My dad was good at football and that has kinda pushed me to be better at football than he was. I feel like I am getting to that spot where I’m better than him.” 

In addition to his prowess running the football Nate has become an absolute terror on defense after making the move to defensive end. He leads the team with 25 tackles, 4.5 quarterback sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss. 

The Sioux are averaging 55 points per game through their first five games and gave up their first points of the season in last week’s 52-12 win over previously undefeated Omaha Nation. 

The giving up of points didn’t sit well with the Lower Brule defense and safety Felicia. 

“Our goal as a defense was to not let anyone score on us all season,” he said. “We had a little setback against Omaha Nation. We take more pride in our defense and we want zeroes across the board every game.” 

Lower Brule junior Nate Middletent leads the Sioux in rushing yards (450) and rushing touchdowns (9) - (Ryan Deal / 605 Sports)

The Sioux have been every bit as good as their past two championship seasons, surprising in that they are breaking in a sophomore quarterback that hasn’t played since middle school. Ethan Thigh didn’t play football at all last year but has completed 8-of-16 passes for 189 yards with five touchdowns and just one interception.

“We’re exposing a kid to football that took a year off,” LaRoche said. “The first few weeks we were pretty vanilla but the last two weeks we’ve started to add some motion and work on our spread offense for later in the season.”

Another surprise for the Sioux has been the emergence of freshman Antelope. Sioux coaches weren’t even sure Antelope would go out for football but the 6-foot-1 junior has 133 yards rushing with two touchdowns and a team leading three interceptions, two of which he has returned for touchdowns. 

LaRoche said the real key to the Sioux’s success is having players like Eliot LaRoche, Brent Hood, Nicolas Flute, Leonard Traversie, Delrae St. Cloud, Payton Palmier and others that all can play both sides of the ball. 

The Sioux have been a model of consistency since joining the All-Nations Football Conference. LaRoche attributes much of that success to the coaching staff.

“Dillon DeJong has been here for six years and doesn’t get nearly enough credit as our offensive coordinator,” LaRoche said. “Jesse Bien joined us two years ago and he runs the offensive line and coaches the middle school program. Jesse drives the bus after practice and we could not do what we do without him.” 

Baptiste Pourier is also on the staff and LaRoche said he does all the little things for the program that often go unnoticed. 

For a small Class B school Lower Brule has 29 high school students out for football and 22 that play middle school. LaRoche said those participation numbers equal 80 percent of the student body. 

“Our philosophy is to really hit it hard in the month of June,” LaRoche said. “We lift every Monday, we go to camps and do a three-day camp in the Black Hills in June. “We give them July off and then hit it hard again in August.” 

The Sioux keep practices light during the week with fundamentals and conditioning on Mondays, putting the game plan in on Tuesday and then a walk-through on Wednesday followed by a team meal provided by parents who have children on the team. 

Felicia said the support from those parents and the entire community is a driving force behind the Sioux’s success.

“Us winning means a lot to our community,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in football here and we feel that pride when the community shows up to support us.”