Eagles soar past the Hawks

AUBURNDALE 62, RIB LAKE-PRENTICE 0

The Rib Lake-Prentice Hawks were overwhelmed by Auburndale’s experience, size and speed Friday in a lopsided 62-0 loss to the Eagles in non-conference play at Prentice.

This one was never in doubt as the Eagles coasted to a 48-0 halftime lead and held the Hawks to just three first downs, one of which came by penalty, and 39 total yards. Auburndale held Rib Lake-Prentice to minus-9 rushing yards.

For the second straight week, injuries popped up for the Hawks during the game, particularly up front. With freshmen and sophomores filling those positions, they were no match for Auburndale’s senior-laden front line.

“They had a good combination of speed and strength,” Hawks’ co-head coach Jonah Campbell said. “It’s one of those things where it’s frustrating when you run back the film and see you’re in the right spots or making the right block, but you just can’t hold it long enough to get the runner by you. The other frustrating part was when subs starting getting put in. We started the game without Ryan Griebel and then a couple more kids went down. You do what you can at that point.”

The Hawks had a glimmer of hope on their first drive, getting a 23-yard completion from Michael Borchardt to Dominic Quednow on their second play. But that possession quickly fizzled. After the punt, Auburndale needed just four plays to go 46 yards and scored on a 23-yard run by quarterback Trayton Weber. The Eagles recovered a fumble on the Hawks’ 29 and scored four plays later on a 14-yard run by Evan Scholl. A 65-yard drive ended with a 5-yard scoring run by Kaden Anderson and, on the first play of the second quarter, Auburndale finished a 48-yard drive with Weber’s 6-yard scoring run to make it 28-0.

Quednow also had the Hawks’ top defensive play of the night, picking off a Weber pass that gave Rib Lake-Prentice good field position at Auburndale’s 33 early in the second quarter. But on third and nine, Scholl stepped in front of Borchardt’s pass, intercepted it and raced unchallenged 70 yards to the house for a 35-0 lead.

Anderson’s 46-yard touchdown run on the first play of the Eagles’ next drive and 56-yard run by Scholl with 4:49 left in the half made it 48-0 and turned the contest into a JV game the rest of the way.

Scholl finished with 123 yards on seven carries as four Eagles ran for at least 40 yards. Auburndale finished with 321 rushing yards and 399 total yards. Weber completed five of eight early passes for 78 yards.

Borchardt showed strong senior leadership for the Hawks while completing three of 13 passes for 40 yards and ending up on the positive side in rushing with 5 yards on 11 attempts. Adam Raab completed an 8-yard fourth-quarter pass to Gabe Ulrich.

“We had bits and pieces of things,” Campbell said of the positives pulled from the game film. “We weren’t able to put a whole lot together, but looking back at the game, some passes were there. We had plenty of opportunities where guys were open. Maybe the ball was thrown to the wrong side and the backside was open or it was a scramble and we had to try to throw it on the run and missed the guy who was open. We were able to pick a few things out on film and say this is the reason why the play wasn’t successful. It was something that was on us and not something that was us just getting beat by the other team.”

Special teams was arguably the brightest area. Donovan Sutherland and Aiden Hause punted for solid distance, the Eagles didn’t get any long returns and the Hawks were close to busting a couple of long kickoff returns. Jonas Staroba averaged 18.4 yards on five returns.

“Special teams, I think overall, did all right,” Campbell said. “We were able to cover the punts pretty well. We covered our one kickoff pretty well and we were on the brink of breaking two or three kick returns. There were some pretty good chunks that we got.”

Rib Lake-Prentice begins Lakeland Conference play Friday by hosting the 1-1 Unity Eagles in Prentice at 7 p.m. The Eagles also figure to use physicality to gain the upper hand at the line of scrimmage, but Campbell said, especially for the team’s older players, there is a confidence knowing the Hawks played Unity well a year ago in a 28-6 loss.

“We played pretty tough against them last year,” he said. “A couple mistakes on our part kept us from keeping it closer than the score suggested. There were a couple of opportunities where we were in the red zone and shot ourselves in the foot. You look at them and there’s an opportunity for some success this year. If we can get success early, I think we have a better capacity to play successfully longer into the game.”