Stayton doubled up Sweet Home in a Thursday night battle on the Eagles’ home turf on Oct. 20, winning 40-20 against a Husky squad hampered by sickness.
The win moved the Eagles to 6-2 on the season, and into a tie for second with Junction City in 4A Special District 4, while Sweet Home fell to 3-5, in a tie for fifth with Philomath, which the Huskies will face at Home Friday.
Husky lineman Colton Bennett said his team could have played better at Stayton, but did “pretty well” considering the circumstances.
“With having half of our guys sick or injured and having a short week, smoke, and everything, I believe we came out here and executed on offense.”
Head Coach Ryan Adams said the Huskies “competed hard.”
“I was really interested to see how it was going to go because of the amount of kids we’ve had out sick this week, and it being a short week and knowing that Stayton’s pretty darn good at what they do.”
The Huskies were without lineman Nathan Aker and running back and safety Gabe Caldera as a result of illness.
The game wasn’t boring, nonetheless.
Sweet Home started out on the right foot after receiving the opening kickoff, as the Huskies drove down the field thanks in large part to a series of passes, including a big one over the top from quarterback Heath Nichol to Trenton Smith for 28 yards.
Nichol eventually ran the ball into the endzone on a quarterback keeper for a seven-yard touchdown. A screen to running back Kayo Ebbs produced a successful two-point conversion, and Sweet Home held a 8-0 lead two and a half minutes into the game.
But Stayton bounced back on its very first play from scrimmage, when senior running back Ty Borde broke loose on a 58-yard touchdown run, making the score 8-7 Sweet Home.
Sweet Home answered with a 69-yard drive, putting the ball in the endzone again on a Nichol run, this time from 17 yards out. A quarterback keeper failed on the two-point conversion attempt, making the score 14-7 Sweet Home with about five minutes left in the first quarter.
Stayton then responded in the back-and-forth contest with a 69-yard drive of its own, punctuated by a five-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back Tanner Starbuck. The score was tied 14-14 with 1:30 left in the first quarter.
Sweet Home was forced to punt on its next possession after Nichol was sacked on third down by defensive lineman Gabe Erickson. Stayton too was forced to punt on its next drive after Sweet Home safety Kaden Zajic batted down a ball. The snap on Stayton’s punt went over the punter’s head, but the Eagles were still able to get the kick off, pinning Sweet Home at its own 19 yard line.
The Huskies went three and out on their next possession, and Zajic punted the ball to the Stayton 31 yard line. The Eagles drove deep into Sweet Home territory, but defensive back Kaden Miller snagged an interception at the Sweet Home four yard line.
Sweet Home’s next drive stalled after two first downs and the Huskies were forced to punt. Stayton got the ball back at the Sweet Home 48 yard line with 54.7 seconds left in the half.
A couple plays later, Borde shook some tackles on a screen play, managing to stay on his feet for a 39-yard touchdown on a pass from quarterback Cody Leming. The score came with 25.3 seconds left in the half. The extra point kick missed wide right, but the Eagles were up 20-14 at the half.
Stayton’s first play from scrimmage in the first half was a touchdown, but the Eagles’ first play in the second half did not go as well, as Borde fumbled. The ball was recovered by Husky defensive back Jacob Sieminski.
But Borde made up for his error on the very next play, when he intercepted a Nichol pass intended for Smith. And incredibly, the slew of turnovers wasn’t over yet, as Stayton put the ball on the ground again on the second play of its ensuing drive, only to have it be jumped on by Husky defensive back Brady Nichols.
That illness and lack of key contributors started taking its toll on Sweet Home in the second half, as the hosts began pulling away.
The Huskies went three and out, hindered by false start and delay of game penalties.
Stayton finally kept control of the ball long enough to put some offensive momentum together on its next possession. Leming found Travis King on a slant route, and King broke a tackle to score a 35 yard touchdown, making the game score 27-14 Eagles with 8:02 left in the third quarter.
Sweet Home failed to convert on fourth and two on its next possession, after a pass was broken up by Stayton defensive back Jace Aguilar. Taking over possession at its own 34 yard line, Stayton drove 66 yards to the end zone. The drive ended with a fade route to the corner of the end zone, with Aguilar catching the throw from Leming for a nine yard touchdown. Sieminski was covering.
“I thought Sieminski was in really good position,” Adams said of the play. “Their kid just went up and made a play, and that’s football.” The score put the Eagles up 34-14 with 39.4 seconds left in the third.
The Huskies’ next drive was pushed back by unsportsmanlike penalties, one on Zajic and another on Adams for arguing a lack of a penalty call for pass interference on a deep throw from Nichol to Nichols.
Stayton took over at the Sweet Home 25 yard line on a turnover on downs.
The Eagles couldn’t take advantage of the good field position, however, going four and out after Nichols batted down a pass in the end zone.
On its next possession, another personal foul was called against Zajic, leading to the senior being ejected from the game for having two personal fouls called against him. Per OSAA rules, Zajic must also sit out Sweet Home’s final game against Philomath.
The Huskies weren’t done yet, though. They marched down the field and Nichol threw to a wide-open Smith for a 36-yard touchdown pass. A pass to Jacob Landtroop on the two-point conversion attempt fell incomplete, but Sweet Home still narrowed the score to 34-20 Stayton with 8:17 left in the game.
On the next possession, defensive back Von James made a big play for the Huskies, snagging an interception and running the ball all the way to the Stayton 39.
“I didn’t want to hit (the receiver),” James said of the play. “I wanted to get an interception and put my team in position to score. So I just jumped the ball and got the interception, and ran as far as I could before I got down.”
But on the next play Sweet Home gave the ball right back, as Starbuck picked off a long throw from Nichol intended for Nichols.
The Sweet Home defense held strong against the run on Stayton’s next possession, forcing an Eagle punt, and James ran the punt back to the Stayton 24-yard line, giving his team great field position.
Yet, two plays later, it felt like deja vu, as Starbuck again picked off a ball from Nichol intended for Nichols, at nearly the same spot on the field.
The craziness continued on Stayton’s next play, as Borde fumbled. But the ball was scooped up by King, who ran it down the sideline 94 yards for a final Eagle touchdown, making the score 40-20 with just 2:48 left in the game.
Adams said after the game that “Their one touchdown at the end was off a fumble/scoop-and-score type of thing. That’s an unfortunate way for it to go, but that’s just kind of how football works sometimes.”
Sweet Home made some last gasp efforts to drive down the field in the game’s closing minutes, but as the final whistle sounded Starbuck reeled in yet another interception, as if he hadn’t already wrecked enough havoc on Sweet Home’s passing game.
Adams said “I thought our kids competed really well. We were kind of in it there until the end. It was a two possession game and we had the ball in the red zone. We just didn’t execute on enough things to come away with a win, but we played hard.”
The coach noted that “Stayton had a few less mental mistakes on their end, and we turned the ball over a couple more times than they did.”
Of Stayton, Adams said “They’re just disciplined. They don’t run a whole lot of complex stuff. It’s just kind of like, ‘This is what we’re going to do. Try to stop it.’ And they’re really well coached. Obviously [Head Coach] Randy [Nyquist] has had a lot of success here in Oregon.”
“They don’t falter,” Adams said of the Eagles. “When things kind of get a little close or tough or the momentum starts to swing, they don’t blink or bat an eye. They just play football, and it leads to a lot of wins.”
He said that Stayton does a good job of disguising its coverage on defense, rotating from a cover one to a cover two and “playing with their linebackers a lot.”
“That caused us fits after those first couple of drives,” Adams said. “But I thought we did a pretty good job in the second half a couple times at being able to exploit that, just not enough to put the ball in the endzone more.”
James said “We fought as hard as we could. But we could have played better all around and watched the language with the refs.”
Bennett agreed.
“We could have done better with keeping our mouths shut and stuff like that.”
Still, he said, the game “went a little bit better,” than he was expecting going in.
“I was hoping that I could have done more,” he said, but noted that he was sick, like many of his teammates.
The sophomore talked about life on the line. “The trenches were pretty insane,” he said.
“Once we started to learn their moves and habits and everything, we could build off of that, and we knew exactly what to do. These guys come straight out at you and they want to grab you, so I stood up and threw their arms down and knocked them back, and I was able to get in the backfield a little bit more often.”
James said that the Eagles “had a lot of lucky breaks.”
“We stopped their run game a little bit too late,” he said. “We could have stopped it earlier, but it is what it is.”
“I was hoping for a win,” the senior continued. “But when we went down, our team kept our head. We didn’t cower down. We stood up and we fought, and we laid hat as hard as we could.”
He said he thought the offense played pretty well. “We had minor issues with the line not knowing what read, but other than that I think we played pretty well as a unit. The blocking was there.”
James said the defensive backs had a “heck of a game.”
Adams noted how Smith was able to defend Stayton’s big tight end Brock Hubert, who stands 6-6. “Trenton Smith did a really good job,” the coach said. “We told him his one job tonight was to take care of that big guy. That kid’s a heck of a player.”
James expressed a team-first attitude after the loss. “I’m not going to put blame on anybody,” he said. “We’re a team. We could get better as a whole to stop a lot of those runs. But as a whole I think we played pretty well.”
Now, the Huskies turn their attention to Philomath for a game at Husky Field at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28. Both teams come into the final contest of the season at 1-4 in Special District 3 league play. The Warriors are 2-6 overall.
“We’re pumped,” Adams said. “We’re excited. It’s the last game of the year. Our last game is at Husky Field, and hopefully we’ll finish the year off on a good note.”
Analyzing the matchup, he said “Record-wise and looking at scores against common opponents, we’re pretty similar.”
“They’ve got some size, but that seems to be the same game every week,” he added. “Everybody seems to have a little bit more size than we do.
“They’ve got some tight ends and some different things like that that might give us some fits. But I think athletically we match up with them pretty well, if not better. I think one of our advantages is the amount of skilled players and playmakers we have.”
He said Sweet Home’s biggest key on defense will be stopping Philomath’s run game, led by senior running back David Griffith
“He’s a really good running back who runs hard and is shifty,” Adams said. “It’s going to come down to owning the line of scrimmage.”
He noted that the Warriors run the triple option most of the time.
“When you play a triple option team, you’ve got to be extremely disciplined and take care of your assignment every play; otherwise, it only takes one to put points on the board.
“Offensively, our game plan is to put the ball in our playmakers hands and execute down the stretch,” Adams said.
Offensive lineman and linebacker Ryker Hartsook is expected to play in the game, his first of the season, after being out all year with a broken arm.
Lineman Huston Holly is also expected to play again after missing multiple games with an ankle injury.
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