MERRILL 20, MEDFORD 16 - Too many mistakes, late Jays’ score lead to defeat at Merrill
Throughout a mistake-filled football game Friday, the Medford Raiders still seemed to be a big play or fortunate bounce away from being able to find a way to escape Merrill with a win.
Ultimately, the mistakes were too much to overcome and Merrill ended its 10-year losing streak to the Raiders with a 20-16 win at Jay Stadium.
Merrill quarterback Cole Rudie stood in the pocket long enough with pressure in his face to find Keylin Allen for the gamewinning 66-yard touchdown catch and run with 6:50 left in the game. The score came a little more than three minutes after Medford took a 16-14 lead on a safety. The Raiders had the ball at midfield after the free kick with a chance to take control, but they quickly punted the ball back to Merrill, who got the big play on third and 11, forced Medford’s sixth turnover of the game on the ensuing drive and held on from there for the Jays’ first win over Medford since Sept. 18, 2015.
“I think our kids played extremely hard,” Medford head coach Ted Wilson said. “They gave everything they had, left everything on the field. I don’t think our effort level was an issue at all. We have to clean up mistakes and we obvious can’t turn over the ball six times. That’s pretty much the story of the night, our inability to keep the ball or not turn the ball over, especially after big things happened.”
Rudie had a big game for Merrill, completing 11 of 18 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns, though the Raiders’ defense in the second half was better until Merrill got the big play late. Merrill did not turn the ball over and the Blue Jays were able to overcome 10 penalties, costing them 75 yards.
Merrill landed the first punches, dominating the first half for the most part. The Blue Jays went 61 yards on 11 plays on the game’s opening possession. Rudie completed all four of his passes, including two 11-yarders and hit Noah Klug with a short 4-yard touchdown pass to end the drive, putting Merrill up 7-0.
Medford went three and out on its only possession of the first quarter. Merrill’s second drive got into Medford territory but was stopped on a Luke Klapatauskas sack, which forced a fumble, but the ball went out of bounds for a 12-yard loss before the Raiders could pick it up.
After Merrill’s punt, Medford got its only big offensive play of the first half as quarterback Nick Krause hit Colton Soczka in stride as Soczka wheeled up the right sideline. The 55-yard gain put the ball at Merrill’s 13, but the drive ended when Ben Gruett intercepted an underthrown ball at the goal line.
The reversal of field position paid off for Medford when Conor Anderson came through the line untouched and blocked Alex Bushar’s punt. The ball bounced back to Merrill’s 1-yard line, where Sawyer Elsner scored from two plays later. Carson Ingersoll ran in the two-point try to suddenly put Medford on top 8-7 with 7:00 left in the half.
But Rudie’s 44-yard completion to Hunter Opper got Merrill to Medford’s 18 and, on the next play, Kanin Jahnke leaked out of the backfield and scored on an easy pass from Rudie to give the Jays a 14-8 lead they carried into halftime.
Medford found an offensive spark in the second half by getting the ball to sophomore Will Wojcik on the edges. He started the second half with an 11-yard pass reception. On fourth and two from Medford’s own 38, Wilson made the call to go for it and the players rewarded him as Krause dropped a perfect deep ball to Wojcik down the left sideline. He broke one tackle and sprinted to the end zone for a game-tying 62-yard touchdown.
“That play is something that we’d been working on the past couple of weeks,” Wilson said. “We put in a little run/pass option there. I actually called the running play. But when you get one-on-one on the outside, we can run a quick slant out of it or we can also run a go out of it. Nick and Will were on the same page and it worked out for us.
“That’s part of that maturation process that we’re trying to get them to go through,” he added. “That was one of the good ones. We had a couple others that weren’t so good. I did think at that point in time, going for it on fourth and two, I just felt like we hadn’t really stopped them defensively very well. I felt punting the ball back to them probably wasn’t a great idea. I was fairly confident we could get the 2 yards on the play we had called. But Nick saw what he saw from the defense, he and Will got on the same page and it ended up being a great play.”
Wojcik’s 30-yard punt return gave Medford a short field at Merrill’s 45-yard line late in the third, but heavy pass pressure led to another interception at Merrill’s 5-yard line. The defense forced a three-and-out and Wojcik had another big punt return that would’ve put Medford around the 10, but a penalty wiped it out.
The Raiders still drove into the red zone and fumbled the ball away inside Merrill’s five. That, however, turned into the goahead safety when Jahnke fumbled the ball back into the end zone. Rudie fell on the ball before three Raiders could, keeping it a safety rather than a touchdown, which wound up being a crucial play, allowing Merrill to take the lead on its 66-yard pass play.
“I thought the defense outside of two or three plays, played fairly well,” Wilson said. “We’re super young over there. We have Sawyer playing linebacker, Conor Anderson playing defensive line and Parker Hill at defensive end. Those are the three seniors out of 11 kids. We’re super young everywhere. They are starting to learn. We’re coming along a little bit. Our defensive backs are starting to get a better sense of when to open their hips and run and not letting guys run by them. Since we’re still young, we still make some mistakes.”
Medford had 135 passing yards, but was limited to 98 yards rushing. Bangedup lead back Sawyer Elsner did not carry the ball after halftime. Ingersoll led Medford with 59 rushing yards on 11 carries. Krause threw for 135 yards while completing five of 13 passes, but Merrill intercepted him three times. The Raiders lost three fumbles as well. Wojcik had 80 receiving yards on four receptions.
“I thought Will had a nice game,” Wilson said. “It was tough sledding. They put a lot of guys in the box. Our offensive linemen have to realize sometimes that’s just the way it is and we have to do everything we can to do things correctly. I thought Will had a nice game. We got a couple of big plays out of him, which is always good.”
The bite of the turnover bug seemed crazy considering Medford had zero turnovers in its first three games.
“Sometimes I guess it happens,” Wilson said. “We’ll try to clean up the interception stuff. We’ll definitely get our backs coached up on ball control. It’s not something that we don’t talk about. We talk about it quite a bit and we practice it. It kind of snowballed on us a little bit.”
Now 1-1 in the Great Northern Conference and 1-3 overall, Medford faces a challenge tonight, Thursday, when the conference’s new front-runner, the Lakeland Thunderbirds, come to Raider Field looking to stay unbeaten and build off their 24-20 win over Mosinee Friday. It was the T-Birds’ first win over the Indians since 2008.
“They’re undefeated, they’re rolling,” Wilson said. “They took care of Mosinee and I’m sure we’re the next team on their list. It’s been a long time since Lakeland has beaten us, just like a lot of the other conference schools. I’m sure they’ll have it circled. Our things are, yes we need to scout and scheme and talk about what we think Lakeland is going to do and how we’re going to play against them. But really a lot of this is on us to try to mitigate some of these mistakes and start to mature a little bit. We have to start moving forward on the little things we talk about all the time. That’s about us taking care of ourselves and not necessarily worrying about what the other team does.”
