After some bobbles that resulted in a one-point loss the week before, Sweet Home’s football team came back with a vengeance Friday, downing Estacada 45-13.
Junior running back Brandon Keenon scored three touchdowns on the ground and junior quarterback Justin Tow scored another, then found two different receivers for two more scores in the air in the second half.
“This was a good team win,” Head Coach Dustin Nichol said.
Estacada took advantage of some Husky errors in the first half, moving down the field and scoring on its first possession.
“We had some confusion on who had responsibility on options,” Nichol said. “Once we got that cleared up, things went pretty smoothly.”
The Huskies’ game plan was to establish a ground game and they did. Keenon rolled up 79 yards just in the first quarter as he scored twice, the second on a 13-yard run immediately after gaining 38 yards on the previous play.
Nichol said the line “did a good job, for the most part.”
In the second half, as they did at Crook County the week before, the Huskies opened up their passing game a bit, though Nichol said he didn’t let Tow put it in in the air as many times as Sweet Home did against the Cowboys.
“We wanted to work on our short game situation,” he said. “We’ve been practicing screens, and with them rushing eight, nine guys in the box, we wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Tow finished with five completions in nine attempts for 97 yards, two for touchdowns – a 17-yarder to Brycen Mitten in the third quarter and a 10-yard scoring strike to Eric Flierl in the fourth.
Hunter Jutte, who played mostly defense because of an injury, kicked a 26-yard field goal to give Sweet Home its final points.
Defensively, Ryan R. Adams was a sparkplug, Nichol said, with three sacks and “high energy the whole game – he brought a lot of enthusiasm. He had an excellent game.”
Jutte had a great interception, reaching back to snag a ball the Estacada quarterback was trying to throw away and running it the length of the field – only to be called back because of a blocking foul.
“The one disappointment I had was in the number of penalties that we had, 135 yards worth,” Nichol said, noting that Keenan also had a long scoring run called back. “Other than that the players did an excellent job in all three facets of the game.
“In that type of game, when the other team’s chirping, we chirp back little bit and we can’t give the refs anything to call. We weren’t moving our feet, getting our hands in the right position.”
Also having a good game was running back Kyler Gaskey, who had 17 carries for 66 yards.
This Friday Sweet Home will wind up its non-league schedule at North Valley against the Knights, who are also 1-1 after a 30-24 win over South Umpqua Friday following a 41-14 loss to North Bend, one of the top-ranked teams in the state – which beat Cottage Grove 56-15 last Friday.
“North Bend is big and talented and fast,” Nichol said. “They’re a tough team to beat.”
North Valley will be fast too, running a spread option office that feature single and two backs out of a “lot of pistol and shotgun type of formations,” with speed and read options and fly sweeps, he said.
“They’ll use speed and read options, fly sweeps and they’ll work a lot on the dge with double screens, get their backs out of the backfield into the flat. Their tailback is really fast and hard to bring down. He’s a force to be reckoned with, coming up the middle.
“They will test our defensive secondary and our middle run defense. It will be a good challenge for us this week.”
Sweet Home – 12 16 7 10 – 45
Estacada – 7 6 0 0 – 13
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
SH – Brandon Keenon 1 run. Kick failed.
E – Run.
SH – Brandon Keenon 13 run. Kick failed.
Second Quarter
SH – Justin Tow 1 run. Tow pass to Eric Flierl.
SH – Brandon Keenon 2 run. Eric Flierl 3 run.
E – Run.
Third Quarter
SH – Brycen Mitten 17 pass from Justin Tow. Hunter Jutte kick.
Fourth Quarter
SH – Eric Flierl 10 pass from Justin Tow. Hunter Jutte kick.
SH – Hunter Jutte 26 FG.
Sweet Home Individual statistics
Rushing: Brandon Keenon 16-164, Kyler Gaskey 17-66, Justin Tow 4-4.
Passing: Justin Tow 5-9-0-97.
Receiving: Brycen Mitten 2-72, Eric Flierl 2-17.