Lincoln, NE. - On a cold and damp Thursday afternoon the Spartans would seem to have the advantage with not having to travel. The smallest crowd of the season, probably due to state softball, district cross country and a freshman football game, appeared as flat as the team and did not have the flavor of a Homecoming game. Once the Bulldogs got limbered up from the ride you felt like you were at an Oklahoma game in the 70's asking yourself how soon is this guy going to break one. Seemed like when the Spartans stopped Dan Woodhead, for what appeared to be a short gain, the down marker would read 2 and 4. The Spartans seemed to play conservative and timid waiting for Woodhead to make a move and moves he did by rushing 229 yards and 3 touchdowns. Woodhead had touchdown runs of 5, 57 and 67 on his way to a Class A career rushing record of 4,275 yards breaking the old record held by John McCardle of Millard North. A touchdown run of 77 yards was called back due to a holding penalty for North Platte.

The game lacked a spark that the Spartans seem to always need to get them going. On the opening play of the game, Pat Spangler overthrough Mike Remmenga just barely that could of opened the field up for the Spartans. Or the last play of the half when Matt Dingledine threw a bomb to what appeared to be a Bulldog interception but, it bounced off a couple of defenders and into the hands of Saul Bakewell. Only a handful of people in the state could prevent Bakewell from scoring and one of them was the speedy Woodhead, who stopped Bakewell on the 5 yard line as time ran out. The outstanding defensive move by North Platte and Woodhead prevented a huge momentum shift just before half. Had the Spartans got into the end zone and made the score 12-10, maybe a different ball game would have occurred. Tony Tabatabai continued his streak of kicking field goals. His 42 yard field goal gave him 7 straight games with a field goal for the Spartans.

North Platte has sewed up the Distict A-1 berth in the state-playoffs with it's 7-0 season. East ended a 5 game winning streak and must re-group to battle Kearney for a playoff spot and home field advantage in the first round.