Jason Casey
Sweet Home’s football team came into its matchup with Cascade expecting a physical game from the run-heavy Cougars, and they got just that, but the Huskies outlasted Cascade scoring a final touchdown with 20 seconds left on the clock to exit their Homecoming game with a 41-38 win.
“We knew we had it in us,” said Jake Swanson. “We knew we should win and, bottom line, it came down to we just had to do it. And tonight, honestly, personally I was playing for my cousin Hayden, No. 2. Before the game I went down to the –I can’t even talk – I wore his gloves, it was all for him tonight.”
Minus senior ballcarrier and linebacker Hayden Nichol, who went down with a leg injury in the previous week’s win over Sisters, other Huskies stepped up against a Cascade team that proved to be a very even match for most of the night.
The game came down to a 90-yard drive by the Huskies in the final two minutes, capped by a one-yard plunge by Hayden McDonald with 20 seconds to go.
“It’s just indescribable,” said Casey Tow. “We just had to keep our mind in it and just know that we were never down and still in it. It was just a great effort by the whole team.”
With 8:03 to go in the fourth quarter, Sweet Home was behind 38-27 after a 13-play drive by the Cougars that culminated with Jake Whisman outracing Colton Smith to the corner of the end zone for a 3-yard touchdown run.
On the next drive, the Huskies came roaring back. McDonald broke a 40-yard run on the first play of the drive, Travis Thorpe took the next handoff from Smith and went right, got through the scrum of offensive and defensive linemen untouched and outraced the rest of the Cougars for the 41-yard touchdown to cut the visitors’ lead to 38-33.
“We knew they were going to stack that side and push McDonald out of the way and try to stop him,” said Thorpe, who finished the game with 110 total yards on offense and two touchdowns. “We audibled it and ran the opposite direction, and all I had to do was run hard.”
On the two-point conversion, Smith and Daniel Virtue checked to an out route at the line of scrimmage. Virtue sprinted up and broke right, Smith threw the ball where only the senior wide receiver could catch it, bringing the score to 38-35 with 7:40 to go in the game.
“I was thinking the same thing as him, a little speed out and he gave me the speed out, and I was like it’s going to be a two-point conversion all day,” said Virtue who finished the game with three catches for 89 yards and a touchdown.
On the drive following the Thorpe touchdown, Cascade rushed the ball nine times in a row, but that ninth run was a fourth-and-1 at the Husky 12-yard line. Backup quarterback Elijah Nolan tired a quarterback sneak that got stuffed by the Husky defense, giving the ball back to Smith and company with 3:07 left on the clock.
“We were expecting them to keep running it over and over again, but you know, we just took the punches as they came we just buckled down,” said defensive lineman Dominic Tuttle. Well, my toes are shaking, and my thighs are killing me, but I feel so good right now.”
“We figured it was going to be a quarterback sneak,” said Head Coach Dustin Nichol of the Cascade play. “And their center isn’t that big, so we put, I want to say we had almost 600 pounds right there over him. And I’m just glad our 600-pound guys didn’t stand up and go backward. That was the difference right there.”
McDonald started the drive off with a 25-yard run. However, after five plays, the Huskies faced a fourth-and-1 with 1:20 to go. Smith hit Virtue for a 19-yard gain. That wouldn’t be the last bit of drama on the drive. On third-and-6 Smith tried to hit Jake Swanson for what would have been the go-ahead touchdown but the ball fell incomplete.
On the next play, it was a fourth-and-6 win-or-go-home moment for the Huskies with 55 seconds on the clock. Smith rolled left found Tow at the 10-yard line, who carried a Cougar to the two-yard line for a first down and a new lease on life. After a quarterback keeper by Smith that got stopped at the one-yard-line McDonald took the handoff and crossed the goal line with 20 seconds to go, taking the lead from Cascade and bringing the score to its eventual outcome of 41-38.
Cascade led 28-21 after a similarly eventful first half.
“I think what we did was we came out, and we made some adjustments at halftime,” said Nichol. “The way they were over-stacking one side, we attacked the weak side. We threw in some automatic calls. We gave them three other plays that, if we call this then we are going opposite and this. So, our guys knew the system enough at that point that they just ran them. So, that was really what the difference was in the last two series.”
After the win, the team huddled around head coach Nichol and sang “Happy Birthday” to him in what was a special moment for the players and coach alike.
Virtue scored the first touchdown of the game with 8:40 to go in the first half. He caught a ball from Smith on the right side of the field, got a block from Swanson and went 48 yards cutting in around the 12 to avoid a would-be tackler.
The first half was a back-and-forth game and came right back at Sweet Home; Cascade ran the ball six times in a row on their first drive before freshman quarterback Jacob Hage threw a deep ball to Whisman for a 41-yard touchdown. The connected five times for 213 yards and two touchdowns. In the first half, the Sweet Home defensive backs had a hard time slowing down Cougars senior wide receiver Jake Whisman, who caught three touchdown passes and had an interception in the game as well.
“What surprised us was their passing,” said Nichol. “They found a passing game somewhere out of the last four games. That is our fault, not practicing more on the pass. (We were) really focusing on the run and we got caught looking in the backfield.
“Three times and that was the difference right there. Three plays and they’re touchdowns. So, big plays kill us. and so that’s what put them into the game.”
After a Husky punt, the Cougars worked the ball down to the 1-yard line where Ethan Coffey scored with 30 seconds left in the first quarter. Cascade was up 14-7.
With 8:12 to go there was a flurry of activity in the second quarter that got started with a Smith pass to Lance Hanson for a 4-yard touchdown bringing the score to 14-14. The teams traded turnovers three drives in a row until on third-and-4 Smith connected with Casey Tow for a 34-yard touchdown.
“We kind of singled out that cornerback,” said Tow. “He was a little bit lesser of the two; he was a good player, but our line gave us enough time, and Colton threw a really good ball, and I was just able to make a play at the right time.
“Colton played really well tonight, he maintained himself a threat on the run game, so they had to respect that. And his throwing was really good. He was throwing to everybody; he threw a touchdown to Lance (Hanson); he was throwing the flood passes to running backs; he hit me on, like, three balls; he’s hitting Nate (Virtue); he played really well tonight. It was outstanding.”
Cascade would answer with a three-minute drive that was capped by Coffey from five yards out then after a Sweet Home three and out Hage and Whisman connected on a perfect pump-and-go that fooled the Huskies secondary as Whisman scampered 69 yards for the touchdown.
A come-from-behind win, on Homecoming night on the head coach’s birthday – not a bad way to close out September in Sweet Home.
The Huskies (2-0, 3-2) travel to Philomath Friday to face the Warriors (2-3, 0-2) who were shut out last week 26-0 by Stayton.
1 2 3 4 Total
SHHS 7 14 6 14 41
CHS 14 14 3 7 38
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
SH- 8:54 Nathan Virtue 52 Yd Pass From Colton Smith (Jake Swanson Kick)
CAS – 6:21 Jake Whisman 40 Yd Pass From Jacob Hage (Joel Negrete Kick)
CAS-: 30 Ethan Coffey 2 Yd Run (Joel Negrete Kick)
Second Quarter
SH – 8:12 Lance Hanson 6 Yd Pass From Colton Smith (Jake Swanson Kick)
SH- 5:08 Casey Tow 34 Yd Pass From Colton Smith (Jake Swanson Kick)
CAS- 3:41 Ethan Coffey 14 Yd Run (Joel Negrete Kick)
CAS – 3:03 Jake Whisman 69 Yd Pass From Jacob Hage (Joel Negrete Kick)
Third Quarter
CAS – 5:52 Joel Negrete 36 Yd
SH – 2:33 Travis Thorpe 18 Yd Pass From Colton Smith (Jake Swanson Kick No Good)
Fourth Quarter
CAS-8:03 Jake Whisman 3 Yd Run (Joel Negrete Kick)
SH – 7:40 Travis Thorpe 41 Yd Run (Two-Point Conversion)
SH-: 20 Hayden McDonald 1 Yd Run (Jake Swanson Kick No Good)
Individual Statistics
Rushing: Sweet Home – Hayden McDonald 18-93-1; Travis Thorpe 3-52-1; Colton Smith 3-6. Cascade – Ethan Coffey 35-159-2; Joe Baxter 10-40; Jacob Hage 4-17; Ryan Diehl 1-3; Jake Whisman 2- (-)1; Elijah Nolan 4- (-) 6.
Passing: Sweet Home – Colton Smith 14-30-4-2; Jacob Hage 9-13-244-2
Receiving: Sweet Home – Nathan Virtue – 3-89-1; Casey Tow 3-68-1; Travis Thorpe 3-58-1; Hayden McDonald 3-20; Jake Swanson 1-7; Lance Hanson 1-4-1. Cascade – Jake Whisman 5-213-2 Elijah Nolan 3-13.