Oct 5, 2019

Crossing Class

If anyone wants to find some good tape of what it means to play a physical, man on man style of Football, get a copy of this game.

The Rebels started with the ball and didn't waste any time setting the tone with straight handoffs that only stopped when Jackson Fields ripped the ball out of the hands Cade Sogge. The Lakers drove the field but got shut down at the 1-yard line with seconds left to end one of the fastest quarters that I'll ever see. The teams combined to play the 12 minutes out in 17 real-time.

D-G-F started the second off with a punt but Detroit Lakes had trouble moving it anywhere but backwards in their second possession. The script changed a bit as the quarter unfolded with the Rebels completing a big pass to get them into the red zone. A couple plays later Sogge made up for the earlier fumble by punching in a touchdown with under 10 seconds to go in the half.

The Lakers came back onto the field with the ultimate momentum shifter. Isaiah Thompson caught the kickoff, saw an opening and didn't stop til he was in the endzone. As with the first score, the extra point didn't work out, though for different reasons, as the snap & hold went awry this time.

After the defense forced another punt, DL changed up their approach a bit as well with two pass plays from Max Gunderson to Reed Mace that covered most of the yardage and made it a 7 point game. As the third quarter was concluding, I got an alert that Moorhead high was just starting halftime, so the teams were still working at a brisk pace! Now granted, the next couple possessions ended in punts but the fun wasn't done just yet.

With their first possession of the fourth quarter and offense beginning to struggle, the Rebels were victim of the game-sealing play. After Justin Wang managed to convert a fake punt, Gabe Hanninen intercepted a pass beyond mid-field and ran it all the way the back. 20-6 isn't an insurmountable deficit but for DGF to come back it would require going away from their strength. With only 248 seconds left on the clock, they were able to make enough quick plays to give themselves a chance. It concluded with a catch in the endzone by Wang and a two-point conversion for good measure but then came the all-important on-side kick, which they weren't able to manufacture. With a little over two minutes to go, and two timeouts, the chance to pull off the comeback was still there. In their bid to be the ones to leave the field as the undefeated, it came up just short though. Detroit Lakes managed to get just enough to be able to run the clock to 0.

As the home field underdog to the higher level Lakers, it may have been the expected outcome but the Rebels showed that their dominant run to 5-0 had not been a fluke. It's a loss that they can learn from and their goals for the season are all still intact!