Sweet Home’s 14-8 loss at Stayton leaves the Huskies in a bad spot in the scramble for state playoff berths from the 4A Special District 3, the Oregon West Conference teams.
On a rainy night Sweet Home had trouble with timing and footing, Coach Dustin Nichol said.
The Eagles scored on their first drive, marching down the field in six plays to take a 7-0 lead, then repeating it on their third possession to lead 14-0.
“They had offense in the first six minutes of the game,” Nichol said. “After that it was a defensive battle.”
Neither team scored in the second or third quarters.
Sweet Home, he said, just couldn’t get in synch, offensively.
Plus, the Huskies got called for a number of delay-of-game penalties, including one on the first play of the second half, after they got the ball on the 20 yard line after Stayton kicked it through the end zone.
“They were shared mistakes,” he said.
Sweet Home ran the ball reasonably well, he said.
Cade Gaskey finished with 88 yards, while Gavin Nichols had 42. Jasper Korn added 38 yards on the ground and quarterback Aiden Tyler 49, in addition to 14 of 34 through the air, with no interceptions, for 119 yards.
He said timing with receivers “was just off.”
“We had a couple of slips.”
Sweet Home finished with 291 yards; Stayton with 281.
But the bounces just didn’t go the Huskies’ way for much of the night, Nichol said. A combination of mistakes and penalties derailed them on offense. Then there were the weird moments, such as one he recounted when, on one fourth down for Stayton, Sweet Home defenders batted the ball and it landed in one’s hands, then slipped through – into an Eagle’s fingers for a first down to move the chains.
Sweet Home’s players never quit, he said.
With 18 seconds left in the game, the Huskies scored when Nichols plunged in from three yards out, and Gaskey added a two-point conversion.
Sweet Home attempted an onsides kick to get the ball back, but it failed to travel 10 yards and Stayton ended up with the ball to end the game.
“That was about how our night went,” Nichol said. “It was a tough one. One of those details – it’s really close or you get blown out. Sometimes this one is tougher than the other.”
The Huskies (1-3, 2-5) are now fifth in the league, one spot ahead of Philomath.
They host Newport (2-2, 2-5), a 63-0 loser to Cascade last week, this Friday at 7 p.m.