ABOVE: Fairmont running back Ty Tumbleson gets brought down by a slew of Waseca defenders during last Friday night’s contest at Mahoney Field.

FAIRMONT – Midseason losses can be a positive turning point or the overall demise for any high school football program who has aspirations of bringing home a state championship.

But following last Friday’s 21-14 defeat against Waseca, Fairmont football head coach Mat Mahoney believes his team will learn from their mistakes, ultimately finishing the 2025 season on another high note.

“They took it personally, and I think that’s important,” Mahoney said. “They weren’t happy about it. They weren’t smiling about it. It bothered them. And as a coach, that is what you want to see. I think there are a lot of things we can take away from this loss that we can use moving forward.”

Part of the reason for this growth is seeing the mistakes from last week’s contest.

While the Cardinals won their first two games by a combined score of 82 points, Mahoney’s roster hadn’t faced any sort of adversity until playing Waseca this past Friday.

This loss was not only motivation, but a blueprint for growth as the season progresses.

“I think the best part about this loss was that we were able to find problems or holes that we took for granted,” Mahoney said. “The speed of the game, we didn’t see that week one and week two.”

Fairmont’s first opponent in their way will be the Austin Packers (1-2), a Class AAAA school who the Cardinals haven’t had much tradition against in the past.

Regardless, as Mahoney’s squad travels to the Austin Wescott Sports Complex this Friday, his goal is to see his team play with a focused energy and effort that can be seen in film the next day.

“We have got to be able to control what we can control, and that’s your effort and attitude,” Mahoney said. “Those are the two things we have been stressing at practice this week. Our guys are hungry, and they want to go out there and do well again.”

Using quarterbacks Jamison Bastyr and Elias Arndt, the Austin offense plans on airing it out against any opponent they face. Laythan Stenzel, Brayden Greene, Zane Thoma, and Tyler Carter are some of the main faces on the outside to look out for in this spread offensive system from the Packers.

Aidan Swenson and Lukas Jorgenson pose as the pair of backfield options for the Austin running game.

“Offensively they are going to try to throw the football, and they have some nice things going in that direction,” Mahoney said. “They are going to hit us on some short passes and try to take some shots down the field, trying to also sprinkle in the run every now and then.”

On the opposite side of the ball, fans can expect to see the Packers sit inside a 4-2-5 defensive scheme, aiming to eliminate Fairmont’s balanced mix of running and passing plays.

While Mahoney predicts Austin to ultimately adjust against his backfield attack with the movement of different defenders closer to the line of scrimmage, he expects his Cardinals to move back to what he called their bread and butter of football-that is running the ball and establishing a line of scrimmage.

“We got to get back to our basic fundamentals,” Mahoney said. “We struggled running the football against [Waseca] because of some missed assignments. That made a big impact on us being able to not run the football. We just have to get back to that style.”

Friday night’s game will be played at the Austin Wescott Sports Complex beginning at 7 p.m. This is the first road game the Cardinals have had to travel to this season.