Jason Casey
Sweet Home’s football players came into their matchup Friday night against Banks, trying to right the ship after a tough loss the previous week against Marist.
That will have to wait until next week; the Huskies lost 44-21 to the Braves.
Sweet Home had a tough time stopping senior quarterback Hayden Vandehey, who made big plays for his team all night, and the Huskies struggled to find consistency on offense and defense.
“They ran a 3-5 defense, and they didn’t walk anybody up,” said Head Coach Dustin Nichol. “They did a really good job; they would all come up like they were in press; they would disguise their coverage and then, when we would snap the ball, they would drop back into zone, and we couldn’t really tell exactly what they were doing.”
Early on,fter a 4-yard touchdown run in the first quarter by Banks’ Josiah Ochoa, Sweet Home got onto the scoreboard. On third-and-9 wide receiver, Nathan Virtue faked like he was going to take a wide receiver screen, and Hayden Nichol ran a wheel route down the rights side of the field and was wide open. Huskies quarterback Colton Smith threw a strike, Nichol made one tackler miss and stiff-armed another on his way to a 64-yard touchdown to even the score at 7-7 with 2:59 to go in the first quarter.
“I just saw green, so I ran to it, and he threw it to me,” Hayden Nichol said.
However, the recurring theme of the game presented itself when, on the ninth play of the next drive, Vandehey followed a kick-out block from Ochoa and turned upfield into a big lane and scored without being touched on a 10-yard run.
Vandehey finished 20 for 34 with 240 yards through the air, with two passing touchdowns and two interceptions, and added 92 rushing yards and two touchdowns rushing on the ground.
After a Sweet Home punt, Vandehey ran the read option to perfection, waiting for a Husky defender to either commit to him or the running back, and when the defender went for the running back, and Vandehey kept the ball and made Smith miss a tackle, and was gone for 64 yards, outrunning the rest of the Husky defense to take the lead 14-7.
“I really don’t know what happened,” Hayden Nichol said about that play. “I know that on one of the long touchdown runs I messed up on my responsibility. We are consistent with most of the game, but when we aren’t, that’s when they make their big plays.”
After another Banks score, the Huskies got some help on their last drive of the half. Three penalties resulted in first downs, and on third-and-13, Smith found Jake Swanson in the back of the end zone and Swanson snatched the ball out of the air bringing the score to 21-13.
“The guy that was guarding me was a lot shorter than me, said Swanson. “So I ran over to coach and (suggested) we should run a fade route, and we did and scored on it.”
But, that was where whatever perceived momentum the Huskies had dissipated. Colton Smith threw a pass on the first drive of the second half that was intercepted by 6-4 Jacob Slifka. On the next Braves’ drive, on third-and-1 Vandehey found 6-7 Blake Gobel with a jump pass that looked like something Tim Tebow would try in his Florida Gator days.
Then Smith was picked off again by Ochoa, and on the next play Vandehey threw a quick screen to Blake Markham, who stiff-armed a Husky defender at the line of scrimmage and went 60 yards. The Braves would add a field goal before the end of the quarter to go up 37-13.
“I think last week we had small mental mistakes and then this week we blew assignments, I feel like,” said Swanson. “On defense, I thought we started out really well but they just got us outside a few times.”
Dustin Nichol said the offensive line struggled to pick up the Banks linebackers.
“They were turning shoulders and not keeping shoulders square and, again, this is a defense that is very physical, and they did a good job with it.
“It’s just another learning thing that our guys will learn from. Our guys are going to get better because of it.”
Smith said it was more than just blocking.
“We got outmanned, our lineman got beat, and it towered down on me,” he said. “I didn’t make very good reads to start at the beginning that kind of flushed through the whole game, and they outplayed us 110 percent.”
The backups for both teams got into the action in the fourth quarter. Sophomore quarterback Aiden Tyler led the Huskies to a touchdown with a 14-yard pass to Peyton Ullrich. But, the Braves had an answer, as they did all night, they had an answer as Jamar Flippin went 77 yards and put a bow on a tough night for the Husky faithful.
A big performer on defense for the Huskies was sophomore Jasper Korn, who finished with four tackles – plus two interceptions and a pass deflection that saved another touchdown.
“He did good guarding a guy a whole foot taller than him,” said Hayden Nichol. “We call him “Korn Island.” He’s doing great, I think, and I think this is his first year on varsity.”
Korn said the Huskies just need to keep working out the “kinks.”
“More practice, really,” he said. “The short routes are killing us because we are lining up so deep. I don’t know. I think it’s just practice and we will get better toward the end of the year. I think we are going to do good in the league.”
Dustin Nichol noted that the Huskies’ first two losses, to Marist and now to Banks, were to teams that are expected to be favorites in the playoffs.
“Banks got beat by Gladstone,” he said. “Those three teams, Gladstone, Banks, and Marist, are top-four teams in the state, and we got beat by them.
“I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so if you go to the defensive side of stuff where we are young at is in our secondary, and we are putting our secondary guys to trial by fire right now.”
He said the Huskies will be working on the timing of their routes and recognizing coverages.
“These guys are teaching us as we go,” he said of the teams Sweet Home has played.
“Even though we get beat tonight, if you look at what we did at Marist and what we brought into here we are better at the end of the day than we were last week. And then we are going to go back and watch film and see what they did to us this here and their learning curve is going to continue to go up so if we come up against these guys or someone similar to this then we are going to be better prepared.”
He said he prefers to “take it on the chin” against top-ranked teams than “if we would have lined up a bunch of top-30-ranked teams and smoked everybody and then be one of those teams that are one-and-done in the playoffs.
“I told some of our secondary guys, before we even played Marist, ‘You’re gonna get your lunch handed to you. It’s going to happen. It’s just how are you going to respond to it? Are you going to win the couple of battles or are you going to win the war?”
Having faced two playoff-caliber teams in their first two games, hanging with Marist for three quarters and for the first half with Banks, the Huskies (0-2) now make a long drive south on Friday, Sept. 14, to face Phoenix (0-2). They should have an opportunity to reverse their momentum, as the Pirates have scored one touchdown, in a 34-7 loss at Newport last Friday, which came after a 28-0 loss at home to 3A Division Cascade Christian.
League play will begin Sept. 28, at home against Sisters.
1 2 3 4 Total
SH 7 6 0 8 21
Banks 7 14 16 7 44
Scoring Plays
1st Quarter
BK– Josiah Ochoa 4-yard run
SH – 2:59 Colton Smith 64-yard pass to Hayden Nichol
2nd Quarter
Bk-11:54 Hayden Vandehey 10-yard run
BK – 9:35 Vandehey 64 yard-run
SH — :27 Smith 13-yard pass to Jake Swanson
3rd Quarter
BK – 10:18 Vandehey 1-yard pass to Blake Gobel
BK –9:10 Vandehey 60-yard pass to Blake Markham (PAT no good)
BK- Jacob Slifka 28-yard field goal
4th Quarter
SH – 1:43 Aiden Tyler 15-yard pass to Peyton Ullrich
BK — :40 Jamar Flippin 77-yard run
Individual Stats
Rushing – Sweet Home: Hayden McDonald 8-27; Cade Gaskey 2-14; Travis Thorpe 2-9; Hayden Nichol 8-7; Colton Smith 4-5. Banks – Hayden Vandehey 6-92-2; Jamar Flippin 2-80-1; Josiah Ochoa 13-48-1.
Passing – Sweet Home: Colton Smith 11-33-208-2-4; Aiden Tyler 3-3 29-1-0. Banks: Hayden Vandehey 19-33-240-2-2.
Receiving – Sweet Home: Hayden Nichol 1-64-1; Nathan Virtue 2-50; Casey Tow 2-36; Jake Swanson 2-26-1; Lance Hanson 3-25; Peyton Ullrich 1-15-1; Cade Gaskey 1-9; Travis Thorpe 1-7. Banks: Blake Markham 8-73-1; Blake Gobel 3-59-1; Bret Cameron 2-28; Martial Stegemeier 1-20; Josiah Ochoa 4-15.