Baldwin High football coach Mike Berg doesn’t have anything sneaky planned for tonight’s game against Eudora.

Berg says he won’t be calling any special plays. There are no tricks up his sleeve. Instead, Berg will stick to his guns, or more specifically, his weapon of mass destruction — senior running back Micah Mason.

Kickoff will be at 7 p.m. at Liston Stadium in Baldwin.

The Bulldogs (4-1) have been deadly with the ball in Mason’s hands. Mason is one of the top rushers in the area with 784 yards and 11 touchdowns through only five games, pushing him over the 4,000-yard mark for his career.

“He’s really a special player for us,” Berg said. “We’re lucky to have him for four years and we wish we could have him for four more. We’ve got some other kids that we’d like to get the ball to, but when you’ve got a back like him it’s hard to do.”

Mason thrashed Spring Hill for 303 yards on just 22 carries during Baldwin’s 41-15 win last week.

“Nobody’s going to hold him to nothing,” Eudora coach Gregg Webb said. “He’s too good for that. We have seen him on film a number of times where he has had people all around him and he still makes something out of it because he breaks so many tackles.”

Mason and the Bulldogs handed Eudora one of its two defeats last season — a 33-32 thriller in Eudora. Later, the Cardinals edged the Bulldogs, 21-4, in the Class 4A state playoffs.

“The regular-season games are a pride thing, but as far as it counting toward the future, what really got it serious last year is that it was in the playoffs,” Webb said. “This game won’t end somebody’s season, but it goes a long way to determining how you stand against a team you might see again at the end of the year.”

Eudora’s defense should certainly stack up. The Cardinals (4-1) boast the top-ranked defense in the Frontier League and are holding opponents to fewer than 100 yards rushing per game.

The Cardinals also have the league’s top rushing offense with Brendan Jackson (465 yards, 56 carries) and Mark Lister (328 yards, 68 carries). Still, turnovers have been a problem, and that’s something that can’t happen if the Cardinals want to keep Mason out of the end zone.

“Our offense hasn’t been very good,” he said. “If it was, that would have limited the touches of the opponents’ offense and limited the number of snaps our defense sees.

“Then our (defensive) numbers would be even better, but our offense hasn’t got the job done. We’ve stuck our defense in some horrible spots and they’ve responded.”