Hawks make offensive, defensive progress in loss to Hurley

HURLEY 38, RIB LAKE-PRENTICE 8

Winning the game was going to be a tall task, but the Rib Lake-Prentice Hawks felt they came away with small victories within their 38-8 loss to Hurley Friday in Rib Lake.

As usual, the Northstars controlled the game with their running attack, piling up 333 rushing yards on 33 attempts and scored the game’s first five touchdowns to put the game out of reach.

But Hawks’ co-coach Jonah Campbell said the team was encouraged by the team’s ability to finally get into the end zone for the first time since week one, get some offensive drives put together, create a couple of turnovers defensively and some solid special teams play.

“All around it was a better executed game,” Campbell said. “Obviously there’s still a lot to work on on both sides of the ball. We didn’t have as many plays where you just shoot yourselves in the foot and cause a big impact or momentum shift. We didn’t have the running clock. So there were some small victories.”

The touchdown came in the third quarter on a 57-yard pass from quarterback Michael Borchardt to Dominic Quednow. Hurley had shown on film, according to Campbell, they had some vulnerability to good passing attacks, especially in recent losses to Auburndale and Ladysmith. They got the look they tried to attack on several occasions, but some snap troubles prevented them from hitting on it early.

The Hawks did connect on one big pass play to Quednow before the half and then got the touchdown in the third quarter.

“We saw a look we felt good about going into this game,” Campbell said. “Feeling good thinking you can score and then actually doing it was big. Defensively after that happened, we played really well.”

The Hawks added the two-point conversion on another nice pass connection from Borchardt to Donovan Sutherland.

“It was a nicely placed ball by Michael, far enough where the defender couldn’t get it but Donovan still had to jump and make the catch,” Campbell said. “It was a good little two-point play and nicely executed. Michael had a good game throwing the ball. He didn’t make any mistakes or throw it into danger. We limited turnovers, they’ve been one of our achilles heels all season.”

The Hawks won the turnover battle two to one, losing just one fumble and getting interceptions from Quednow and Dominick Classen.

Campbell said the Hawks had some snap troubles that led them to changing from the shotgun to having Borchardt take snaps from under center. The last time they tried that in the opener against Marathon, Borchardt had little time in the pocket. But that wasn’t the case Friday, which he said was another good sign.

“As soon as he got the snap (early in the year) he couldn’t really drop back,” Campbell said. “At least when we went under center (Friday), he had time to drop back and make quick throws. I think that adjustment made a big difference in the second quarter and moving forward in the game.”

Defensively, Hurley is fairly simplistic in its approach yet it’s rarely easy to stop. They run a handful of plays, but misdirection in the backfield and pulling of linemen make it tough for defenders to read keys and quickly find the football.

“The big thing is being able to read pulls,” Campbell said. “I think they pull on every single play, even most of their pass plays. They’re tight. Their pulls are right next to each other. They do a good job of getting down blocks. They weren’t the fastest group or the biggest group, but they’re physical. They were able to get their down blocks and not give up ground to defenders. They’re able to get those pulls and create some holes. Obviously they’ve been effective against every opponent.”

Hurley took a 26-0 halftime lead, scoring twice in each of the first two quarters. Carter Hall, the biggest of the Northstars’ running backs, got the first touchdown on a 6-yard run in the first quarter. Then Brett Van Epern got loose on a sweep to the left for a 46-yard gain that set up a 7-yard scoring run by quarterback Zane Colassaco that made it 13-0.

Van Epern caught Hurley’s lone completed pass of the game, a 24-yarder along the right sideline, that helped set up a 10-yard touchdown run by Jack Caudill that opened up a 20-0 lead early in the second quarter. A 38-yard run by Devin Soltis set up Van Epern’s 4-yard touchdown run.

Caudill’s 10-yard touchdown run made it 32-0 before the Hawks hit on their big touchdown pass. Hall got his second touchdown of the day, a 4-yarder, late in the quarter to close the scoring.

Hall led Hurley with 91 yards on eight attempts. Van Epern had 85 yards on five carries. Four Northstars ran for at least 59 yards.

The Northstars threw the ball eight times, much more than they usually do and only completed one of those passes.

Offensively, Rib Lake-Prentice finished with 190 yards, including 136 through the air and 54 on the ground. Logan Schmidtfranz had 36 of the rushing yards on 10 carries.

“We were able to get some between the tackle plays,” Campbell said. “Logan Schmidtfranz was filling in for Jonas Staroba and he had a lot of pretty strong runs. They were just impressive in the fact that he lowered his head, ran forward and was looking for what was there, not for cuts or anything like that. It was just solid, downhill get what you can get type running.”

Now winless in six tries, the Hawks have yet another stern Lakeland Conference test this week, traveling to Ladysmith for a 5 p.m. kickoff on Saturday. The Lumberjacks are 4-1 overall including wins the past two weeks over Hurley (44-38) and Webster (47-0).

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