Sweet Home shrugged off some distractions and delays to get down to business and dispatch Madras 35-6 in their football season opener Friday night, Sept. 5.
“The day itself was quite eventful,” Head Coach Ryan Adams said.
The junior varsity bus had some “mechanical issues” on the way to the game and that was followed by a lightning delay at the end of a long road trip, which resulted in a late start for the game.
It took a little while for the Huskies to settle down, as they and the hosts traded possessions for most of the first quarter, punctuated by a couple of fumbles for Sweet Home.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times,” Adams said, noting that two drives ended with fumbles. Madras, he noted, plays on a “long grass field” that was a change for the Huskies, who practice on artificial turf.
But Sweet Home got rolling midway in the second quarter as sophomore running back Sam Barringer sliced through the defense on a 34-yard run and senior kicker Keeghan Gittins followed that up with the first of his five straight successful extra point attempts.
Two plays later the Huskies sacked Madras quarterback Bentley Stockton, who lost the ball and Sweet Home recovered on the White Buffaloes’ 18 yard line.
On the next play, with 4:39 on the clock, Zajic hit Bode Nichols with an 18-yard scoring pass for a 14-0 lead after Gittins’ kick.
In the closing seconds of the half Zajic launched three long pass attempts from the 44 yard line, which were aggressively defended by Madras, and the score stayed at 14-0.
“We just talked at halftime about having to take care of mental mistakes, with the fumbles and a lot of penalties in the first half on our end, that really just kind of stymied what we were trying to do,” Adams said. “I thought we started the second half about as good as you could.”
Just a minute into the third quarter, Zajic delivered a 69-yard pass to Nichols on the second play of their opening drive of the half for a third touchdown.
Madras then launched a 15-play drive that eventually got the White Buffaloes into the end zone.
That came after Barringer picked off an attempted scoring pass by Stockton from the 8 yard line, but it got called back on a roughing the passer penalty, which moved the ball up to the 3, from where Madras got its lone score of the night. Its kick was wide.
“We talked all last week about sudden change and how we respond to things, and I thought our team captains did a phenomenal job pulling guys in and and really just kind of refocusing them on what matters, not the penalties, not what happened the play before, but just how important that next play is,” Adams said. “We responded really well.”
The Huskies went back to work from their 40 with 3:47 left in the period, and Barringer weaved his way through the line and outsprinted the defense for a 55-yard score.
Sweet Home’s final score came with 10:10 on the clock in the fourth as Zajic scooped a bounced snap off the turf and wove his way through the defense from the 30 yard line to score.
Though Madras actually ran 40 plays to Sweet Home’s 47, the Huskies outgained the hosts 295 yards to 54.
Zajic finished with 110 passing yards on five completions in 11 attempts, and Sweet Home gained 185 yards on the ground.
The defense recorded three sacks and three tackles for loss, and forced two fumbles.
“Our defense played lights-out,” Adams said. “Our offense took a little bit to get going, but once they did, they were able to execute on some pretty big plays for us. I thought our special teams played well.”
He said one thing that he “was most proud of” was that his players did not make the same mistakes twice.
“When they made a mistake, they were able to recognize it. We were able to coach it, and then they corrected it.”
The Huskies will host Molalla at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, in their home opener at Husky Field, beginning a two-game home stand with Woodburn coming Sept. 19.
The Tigers will arrive off a 21-1 loss to The Dalles, but Adams said he expects them to be “physical,” with a heavy emphasis on the run.
“I think that we can compete really well and potentially go get (them) if we take care of what we can take care of, but I know Molalla is coming ready to fight – the last two years we’ve split with them and they handled us pretty good the last time they were here (29-6) and we pulled out a close one last year (12-7).
“We’re really excited about the group we have,” Adams said. “They are really dedicated to what we’re trying to build here.”