It was one of those nights when nothing seemed to go Sweet Home’s way on the football field.
Weather conditions, mistakes and miscues combined with a stubborn Junction City opponent to leave the Huskies at the short end of a 24-7 score.
“All the credit to Junction City,” said Sweet Home Head Coach Ryan Adams. “They were prepared to play. Their kids were fired up and ready to play. And they came out, and they just flat-out punched us in the mouth, just with their effort level.”
The loss ended the Huskies’ season-opening win streak at 5-0 and dropped them into a four-way tie with Philomath, Crescent Valley and Marist at 1-1 in 4A-SD3 Special District 3 with three games left in the league schedule. Junction City is on top of the stack at 2-0, while Cottage Grove is 0-2.
Friday, Sweet Home struggled all night on offense, coughing the ball up three times and giving up some freebies to the hosts on special teams.
The Tigers returned the opening kickoff to the Sweet Home 30 and, half a dozen plays later, were sitting on a 7-0 lead following a 2-yard run.
The teams spent most of the rest of the first quarter trading three-and-outs until Junction City punted and Dillan Davis fumbled the reception, which the Tigers recovered on Sweet Home’s 22 yard line.
After an incomplete pass into the end zone, Landon Van Hecke kicked a 14-yard field goal to put the hosts up 10-0.
Midway through the second quarter, Junction City Quarterback Kaden Shafer launched a long pass downfield that was picked off by Kyle Zajic.
But the wet conditions bit Sweet Home again as, with 39 seconds left in the half and the ball on the Sweet Home 17, Zajic was tackled from behind by the Tigers’ Max Brawner in the backfield as he tried to find an open receiver and lost the ball. It was scooped up by safety Max Waldrop, who scored to give Junction City a 17-0 lead going into the locker room.
“It wasn’t that our kids didn’t play hard,” Adams said. “It’s just when things started unraveling for us and not going our way, it was just a little bit too difficult to get out of our own way.
“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot with missed opportunities, turnovers, missed assignments. And that was just left and right from everybody, all phases of the football game that first half.”
He said the team talked at halftime about how they were going to respond to adversity: “We are either going to change it in the second half, or we’ll have to change it next week, this week in practice,” Adams said Monday.
Things got better, but not right away.
Two plays into the second half, sophomore tailback Sam Barringer was upended as he ran the ball up the middle and it squirted out of his hand, giving the hosts another chance. This time, though, they couldn’t capitalize.
Then, with 5:06 in the third quarter, the Huskies marched to 23, where on third and 18, Zajic was picked off again.
But the hosts didn’t score this time either and, late in third, they got the ball back and Zajic hit Davis with a 13-yard pass over the middle.
Then, two plays into the fourth quarter, he faked a toss and kept the ball on an 19-yard scramble up the middle to the 27, following that up with a 15-yard pass to Bradyn McClure to the 12.
On the next play he handed off to Kaeson Walker, who slashed his way into the end zone. Keeghan Gittins added the extra point and it was 20-7.
With about 3:30 left in the fourth quarter Sweet Home was set back to its 26 by a holding call and the Huskies lost the ball on downs.
Three plays later the Tigers scored their final touchdown on a 2-yard run with a little over a minute on the clock.
“I was proud of the way the kids chose to respond,” Adams said. “They came out fired up in that second half.
“It was just an absolute battle at that point for the rest of the game.
“I thought our defense, for being on the field as long as they were and in the inopportune times that they were, I think that they played pretty well for what you could expect.”
Zajic finished six for 12 in the air for 37 yards, while Barringer was the Huskies’ top rusher for 24 yards. Trenton Templin had two carries for 14 and Walker carried twice for 26 yards, including the touchdown.
Up next for the Huskies is another road trip, this time to Crescent Valley, which beat Philomath 20-15 on Oct. 3 and fell 49-21 to Marist on Friday.
Adams said the focus now is to get back on track.
“Friday was just kind of a really weird night for us,” Adams said. “It was a perfect example of how, going into opponents with the wrong mindset and then approaching practices with the wrong mindset, that’s going to have an impact on the game. And we saw that firsthand Friday.
“Last Friday was not an accurate representation of who we are, but the guys are really excited to get back to focusing on us, focusing on what we need to do to put ourselves in the right mindset, and then, when we’re in the game on Friday, controlling what we can control, focusing on the next play, a lot of things that we were focused on when we were having success, and then just trying to not let one bad experience last Friday turn into two in a row.”