Britton-Hecla did not lead in Friday’s football clash with Great Plains Lutheran until its two-point conversion with 10 seconds remaining, and the 22-20 victory was the Braves’ third straight to run their season mark to 3-2.
This week Coach Jacob Skogstand’s squad will host Waubay-Summit, 2-4, for homecoming. The game will be played at 3 p.m. because officials were not available for an evening contest. The two clubs have played three common opponents. W-S lost to Great Plains Lutheran 42-31, defeated Redfield 38-0 (B-H won 48-0), and lost to Hamlin 50-0 (B-H lost 52-0).
“This week, we need to be more efficient in the pass game to couple with an effective run game,” stressed Skogstad. “Defensively, they have a lot of kids who will run really hard, so tackling is going to be huge for us. Offensively, we need to clean up the penalties. We only had four on Friday, but those four took points off of the board for us, and that hurts.”
Skogstad labeled the Braves’ win over Great Plains Lutheran as a “very fun high school football game.”
“Both teams really battled and made it difficult for the other to get stuff going offensively,” said the Braves’ boss. “I think they made some splash plays offensively, but I was pleased with our defense’s ability overall to limit drives. We need to clean up the big play problem, but we ended up making one more play than they did.”
GPL scored first on a 33-yard pass play and added the conversion run to go up 8-0. Quarterback Jace Rein, who threw three touchdown passes in the game and has nine TD tosses in the past two outings, hit Daniel Person from 13 yards out to cut the margin to 8-6, but the hosts scored again on a 25-yard pass to lead 14-6 after one period.
Neither team scored in the second quarter but early in the third period Rein found Mitchell Burger from 20 yards out and Bryce Hawkinson added the conversion run to knot the contest at 14-all.
GPL went back on top with 7:24 to play in the game but missed the conversion try to lead 20-14. That set up that “one more play” that proved to be the difference. Rein found Jaxon Zuehlke on a 10-yard touchdown toss and then ran the conversion that broke the 20-20 tie and gave Britton-Hecla its first lead of the game.
“Our last drive was something I am very proud of our kids for,” added Skogstad. “To take the ball, down six, with just over two minutes left and two timeouts remaining, and drive 86 yards to score is special. I’m proud of our kids resolve.”
Statistically, the game was nearly as close as the score with GPL holding a 265-246 total yards advantage. Britton-Hecla had 164 yards rushing to 130 for GPL, while the Braves passed for 82 and the Panthers threw for 135.
Bryce Hawkinson led B-H with 90 yards rushing on 18 tries and also grabbed three passes for 20 yards. Rein added 43 rushing yards and Dashel Davidson 27. Burger had a pair of pass receptions for 289 yards and Person caught three for 21. Zuehlke led the defensive effort with seven tackles and Person had a pass interception.
BH (3-2) 6 0 8 8 – 22
GPL (3-3) 14 0 0 6 – 20
GPL – Lucas Johnson 33 pass from Brody Scharlemann (Scharlemann run)
BH – Daniel Person 13 pass from Jace Rein (pass failed)
GPL – Johnson 25 pass from Scharlemann (pass failed)
BH – Mitchell Burger 20 pass from Rein (Bryce Hawkinson run)
GPL – Scharlemann 6 run (pass failed)
BH – Jaxon Zuehlke 10 pass from Rein (Rein run)
RUSHING: BH, 39-164 (Bryce Hawkinson 18-90, Jace Rein 7-43, Dashel Davidson 10-27); GPL, 23-130 (Andre Theron 10-74, Kowynn Muhl 5-46, Brody Scharlemann 3-10)
PASSING: BH, 10-22-0-82 (Rein 10-22-0-82); GPL, 8-12-1-135 (Scharlemann 8-12-1-135)
RECEIVING: BH (Mitchell Burger 2-28, Daniel Person 3-21, Hawkinson 3-20, Jaxon Zuehlke 1-10, Davidson 1-3); GPL (Lucas Johnson 3-92, Micah Holien 3-39)
FIRST DOWNS: BH, 16; GPL, 9
DEFENSIVE LEADERS: BH (Zuehlke 7 tackles, Hawkinson 4 tackles, , Person 3 tackles, pass interception); GPL (Johnson 5 tackles, Scharlemann 5 tackles)
