Britton-Hecla’s fifth win in six starts on the gridiron Friday was a coming out party for sophomore quarterback Jaxon Zuehlke.
The 6-3, 190-pound signal- caller passed for six touchdowns and ran for another in leading the Braves to a 48-30 victory. He connected on 1315 passes for 307 yards and no interceptions and just for good measure also led the defensive effort with nine tackles, eight of them solo stops, and a fumble recovery.
Zuehlke’s favorite target and long range threat this season has been junior wide receiver Daniel Person. The two connected on a 61-yard bomb on the first play of the game to set the tone for what was to come. Person caught two other TD passes from 45 and 12 yards out and had six receptions for the game on seven targets for a whopping 186 yards. He also was a defensive force with a pair of pass interceptions.
Zuehlke now has 14 touchdowns for the season, eight via the airways and six running the football. Person has caught six of those touchdown throws with five of them at least 40 yard bombs.
“Jaxon and Dan have really developed into a huge threat for us,” said B-H coach Jacob Skogstad. “It takes a ton of pressure off of the offensive line and running backs when we are able to take the top off like that.”
The Braves will hope to keep the fireworks coming when they travel to Wolsey-Wessington on Friday. The Warbirds bring a 3-3 record into the game with those three losses coming to teams with a combined 17-2 mark (Parkston 7-0, De Smet 5-1, Platte-Geddes 5-1).
“Offensively, our key this week is to establish the ground game and utilize the deep ball to loosen up Wolsey-Wessington’s defense,” stressed Skogstad. “Defensively, we will need to play sound defense. They are very talented offensively, so limiting explosive plays is going to be huge for us.”
It looked like the Braves were going to blow out Ipswich early on Friday. After the firstplay fireworks the B-H defense forced a three-and-out, taking over on the Ipswich 45, and seven plays later Zuehlke and Person hooked up again on a 12-yard score.
On Ipswich’s next possession Ben Suther blocked a Tigers punt and on the Braves’ first play Zuehlke found Jace Rein from 39 yards out and Rein also grabbed the conversion toss for a 20-0 B-H lead with 3:35 still remaining in the opening quarter.
But Ipswich battled back. The Tigers put together a 60yard, six-play drive to cut the margin to 20-8 and then drove to the B-H five after forcing a Braves’ punt. Bryce Hawkinson ended that threat with a pass interception in the end zone.
Then the Braves performed a little more of their first down magic when Zuehlke burned the Tigers again by connecting with Person for a 55-yard gain to the Ipswich 25. Two plays later Zuehlke rambled 20 yards to paydirt for a 26-8 lead.
The Tigers came back again - in a hurry – returning the kickoff 80 yards. Each team turned the ball over on their next possessions and the Braves led 26-16 at halftime. But Ipswich, which also had success through the air with 265 yards, struck from 41 yards out and suddenly had outscored B-H 22-6 after the Braves fast start and cut the margin to 26-22 less than a minute into the second half.
That was as close as the Tigers would come. Hawkinson capped a five-play, 52-yard drive with a 21-yard TD toss from Zuehlke. Then after a Dashel Davidson sack forced an Ipswich punt, Ty Fagerland finished a nine-play drive that covered 60 yards with a five-yard TD catch from Zuehlke with 1:04 left in the third period for a comfortable 42-22 margin.
Ipswich made things a bit interesting in the final period, opening the quarter with a 41--yard scoring toss, stopping the Braves on four downs, and then marching into Braves’ territory with five minutes still to play. But Fagerland ended that threat with a fourth down sack and on the next play the Zuehlke-Person duo struck again from 45 yards out to decide the issue.
“I thought we played really well both offensively and defensively against a very talented football team,” noted Skogstad. “The next step we need to take as a program is when we get these big leads, put away the game. We have a tendency to relax a bit and let teams crawl back in. We want to keep our foot on the gas and close out football games.”
