It’s been one long year since the Baldwin High football team last played Paola.

Much has changed.

The Bulldogs won the game, 24-6, but the remarkable improvement Paola has shown since then has Baldwin coach Mike Berg realizing this could be one of his team’s toughest games.

“They’re more experienced,” Berg said. “They’ve been through the rough times last year early and kept getting better. They’re a lot better at executing.”

Case in point: Sept. 27 of last year, Eudora pounded Paola 44-0. By Nov. 15, the two teams were meeting again in the state playoffs. Eudora eked out a 15-14 victory in overtime.

Baldwin has improved, too. Last year’s Bulldogs finished 6-4, but many of the impact players are back. That includes senior running back Micah Mason, who had 116 yards rushing in Baldwin’s 40-6 victory over Anderson County last week.

Paola beat Basehor-Linwood, 28-0, last week.

“We are looking forward to the challenge,” Berg said. “They’re a very well-coached team. Last year was the first year in a long, long time that we were able to beat them.”

Mason seems to be the cornerstone of Baldwin’s offense, but he’s hardly all the Bulldogs have. Last week, BHS had five different players score touchdowns.

“We mixed it up,” Berg said. “We actually threw the ball 14 times. (Wide receiver) Andy Hannon had a touchdown, our fullback (Kyle Flory) had a couple of touchdowns. Micah only had one.”

Despite the 34-point victory over Anderson County, Berg stressed improvement was necessary if Baldwin wanted to go 2-0. The Bulldogs committed too many turnovers last week, and Paola will no doubt make them pay for such mistakes tonight.

“We’ve got to execute,” Berg said. “We’ve got to run our plays to perfection and not shoot ourselves in the foot. We have to eliminate the mistakes.”

After tonight, Baldwin will hit the road for two weeks, starting with Gardner-Edgerton next Friday.