Jason Juno/Daily Globe Ontonagon's Noah Lukkari (84) runs against Superior Central, Aug. 26, in Ontonagon.

IRONWOOD — When Ontonagon rolled over Carney-Nadeau 80-12 in its final game of the regular season, the Gladiators qualified for the MHSAA Division 1 eight-player football playoffs for the first time since 2011.

Ontonagon finished with a 5-3 overall record and will now play a talented Stephenson team in the first round of the playoffs. The game will be played in Stephenson on Friday with a 7 p.m. (EDT) kickoff.

“The kids are pretty excited about making the playoffs,” Gladiator coach Ben Mayer said. “They’ve worked hard for a long time to be in this position.”

Stephenson finished its regular season at 7-2 and defeated Ontonagon 54-16 along the way. Stephenson won its first seven games of the year but lost two of its last three games to Rapid River and North Central.

The Eagles have been flying high on offense this season scoring 436 points or 48.5 points per game. Their defense had been very stingy — especially for eight-player football — giving up 134 points (15 points per game).

Ontonagon has been more of a ground-oriented team scoring 346 points (43.3 ppg) in eight games. Its defense has yielded 288 points (36 ppg) this year. Twice this year, the Gladiators scored 80 points in a game.

Statistics aside, Mayer knows Ontonagon has drawn an excellent football team to play in its opening game of the playoffs.

“We know a lot about Stephenson,” Mayer said. “We knew the odds were high we’d be playing them again in the playoffs, so we’ve been sort of planning for them. They are very good across the board and one of the best teams in the state. They have the best backfield in eight-man football. Montell Glover is very likely the fastest running back in the U.P. and he’s 190 pounds. He’s one play away from a 50-60-yard touchdown. We have to try and take away some things on them.

“They have good players on defense, too. They have good linemen and big, strong defensive ends. They’ve also got strong linebackers and defensive backs. They’ll be one of the more physical, fast and aggressive teams we’ll play. We have to match their physicality and get off the bus ready to play.

“But every team has weaknesses and we have a plan against Stephenson. We just have to work the plan. We feel confident we’ll be ready to play.”

It should be noted that Ontonagon has its share has of tough, physical players who won’t back down to any team.

Mayer said Friday’s game will be different than their earlier encounter with the Eagles.

“I think we should be competitive with them,” Mayer said. “We had some injuries in the last game. We were missing Micah Blake and he’s a very good player. Foul weather, cold, snow and wind all can have an effect on the game and it looks like we may get some of that.”

Mayer also took some time to reflect back on the 2017 season.

“I was happy with it,” Mayer said. “We had some adversity, but you have adversity in every season and I thought we overcame it. We improved a lot over the course of the season.”

But Mayer also left the impression he thought the Gladiators had the tools to contend for the Western Eight Conference title.

“We had a good senior crew with lots of experience,” Mayer said. “I thought we’d be real competitive in the conference.”

There were also a talented bunch of juniors coming up and reinforcements were arriving from Ewen-Trout Creek.

It seemed like it could very well be Ontonagon’s time to win. But the conference was especially tough this season as five conference teams made the playoffs and the Gladiators lost a tough one to conference champ Rapid River, 26-22.

Although the Gogebic Miner co-op agreement seemed to get more publicity, Ontonagon and E-TC agreed to play football together for the first time and Mayer said the co-op went well for the most part.

“It went good,” Mayer said. “The kids got along good and played together well. The kids from E-TC had to put in lots of time to play football. It was one-half hour up and one half hour back every day to practice and a lot of late nights.”

Mayer said the strength of this year’s team was its defense.

“Our defense was very consistent all year,” Mayer said. “The defensive line was our biggest strength. Tanner Balcomb, Jake Witt, James Domitrovich and Micah Blake are all real good players. And we had some strong, big backups in Preston Manos, Phil Voss, Eddie Polakowski, Cree Korich and Julian Doverspike. There was some real good competition there and we had good linebackers and defensive backs.”

Jaden Weisinger was Ontonagon’s main threat on offense as he rushed for 1,240 yards on 137 carries.

Perhaps the biggest adversity the Gladiators faced was the loss of quarterback Noah Kaarto, who was injured in the first game and lost for the season.

“Noah had played well as a junior and I thought he would have a big senior year,” Mayer said. “He was our spark plug, the leader of our team. But the team adjusted to the adversity. Dusty (Howard) became the quarterback and he last played in junior high as a lineman. But he came in and ran the offense well and handled our big playbook. He did a real nice job at quarterback.”

Now, the Gladiators will try and leave a big imprint on the playoffs.