Phoenix stays ahead of Huskies en route to 38-28 playoff win

Scott Swanson

Sweet Home lost 38-28 Friday to a bigger, and on this night, better Phoenix football team in the first round of the 4A playoffs, but the Huskies did something they had difficulty with earlier this season: They were in the game from beginning to end.

“Started playing hard and they finished playing hard,” Coach Dustin Nichol said. “I was proud of them.”

Against a tricky spread offense that the Pirates ran with aplomb behind their multi-skilled quarterback, senior Triston Hay, the Huskies battled back after a pick-six and repeated uncalled delays in the fourth quarter that prompted vigorous protests from the Sweet Home sideline.

Hay was the engine that drove Phoenix, finishing with 137 of the team’s 297 yards on the ground and throwing for 108 yards, particularly since the Husky secondary had to stay with his receivers, which left him able to run.

“They pretty much moved the ball at will,” Nichol said. “Their best runner could throw the ball if he chose to. We had to play a little more pass rush than run-first and that set things up for a little more hesitation (for the Huskies).

“We tried some different defensive fronts and some stunts off the edge – everything in our repertoire to try to get some things changed up. We didn’t seem to have an answer for them. That’s the long and short of it.”

Sweet Home’s other problem was it could never really get its passing game going and quarterback Justin Tow had two passes intercepted by an opportunistic Pirate secondary, which ended promising drives. He finished with four completions for 44 yards.

Junior Brandon Keenon was his normal work-horse self, carrying 28 times for 173 yards and one touchdown. Sweet Home finished with 222 total yards, 178 on the ground.

The Huskies got off to a promising start early on when Hunter Jutte intercepted Hay’s first pass on the third play of the game, but Phoenix quickly showed that it came to play, forcing the Huskies to punt after a six-play drive to the mid-field stripe that was stymied in part by a holding call against Sweet Home – its most serious penalty of the night in terms of killing momentum.

“It would have been a momentum-changer if we could have scored first,” Keenon said later. “It would have been a different game.”

The hosts got the ball on their 12 after Jutte boomed a long punt deep into their end of the field,and Hay and running back Zach Atteberry combined to take Phoenix on a 15-play, 88-play drive to their first touchdown with 2:53 left in the period. Sophomore kicker Tony Bazan, who was perfect all night, made it 7-0.

Then, five plays into Sweet Home’s response, sophomore defensive back Gerardo Sanchez picked off quarterback Justin Tow and returned the ball 52 yards for Phoenix’s second score and a 14-0 lead with 40 seconds left in the first quarter.

“That was killer,” Keenon said. “But it happened. That’s football.”

Through most of the second period the game settled into a defensive battle, Sweet Home mounting a 10-play that ended with Jutte punting to the Phoenix 11 and then forcing the Pirates to punt after six plays and Jutte returning that to the home team’s 29-yard line to give the Huskies their best field position so far.

They took advantage of it, driving to the one-yard line, where Tow sneaked in to narrow Phoenix’ s lead to 14-7 after Jutte’s kick with 2:17 on the clock.

The Pirates came roaring back, but after jumping offsides, they found themselves with a first-and-15 on their 20 and two seconds left in the half, so Bazan kicked a 37-yard field goal to give Phoenix a 17-7 lead going into the locker room.

Sweet Home wasted no time getting down to business in the second half, Keenon finding an opening on a sweep to the left on the Huskies’ second play and running 58 yards to pull within three points, 17-14.

“We got a little speech in the locker room that gave us more momentum to keep going,” he said.

But Phoenix came right back, driving from its 40 in eight plays to the one, where junior Justin Knight scored the first of his three second-half touchdowns with a one-yard plunge to make it 24-14.

Sweet Home responded with another drive that ended with Tow hitting Jutte on a 14-yard scoring pass to once again narrow the gap, 24-21.

Back came the Pirates with another 10-play, 55-yard drive that ended with Knight slicing in from the one and putting Phoenix back up, 31-21 with two seconds on the clock in the third quarter.

Things got a little uglier midway through the fourth quarter as the Sweet Home sideline vocally protested several back-to-back failures by officials to call delay of game on Phoenix, which was relying on signals from the sideline that players checked on their wristbands to determine what play to run. The problem was that it was taking the hosts nearly 30 seconds per play to snap the ball, well over the 25-second limit.

“I swear we couldn’t get a holding call on their sideline,” Nichol said. “I don’t like to lay things on the refs, but there were some questions out there. Plays that took two seconds before halftime were taking eight or 10 seconds.

“We had some calls against Elmira go our way. Officials and injuries are part of the game. It’s just something you have to deal with.”

Although officials called an offensive facemask penalty on the Pirates soon thereafter and then followed that up with a delay-of-game call against the hosts, a 14-play drive finished with a six-yard run by Knight to put Phoenix up 38-21.

Jutte, a senior who has been the Huskies’ leading receiver as well as handling all their kicking and most kick returns this year, took matters into his own hands at that point.

Phoenix kicked it to him on the 25 yard line and he blasted past two or three tacklers and set sail for the end zone on a 75-yard return for a touchdown with 1:23 left.

“We put in a new kick return two weeks ago and we hadn’t really done it, but I thought, ‘Let’s see if it works, and it worked,’” Jutte said. “I just found a hole and shot through it and did what I could. There’s no way they were taking me down.”

His kick made it 38-28, then he nailed a successful on-sides kick that was recovered by the Huskies to give Sweet Home one more chance with 1:20 on the clock.

“What I liked about our team was Hunter getting that ball and returning it for a touchdown,” Nichol said. “Then getting that onside kick back. I thought we handled ourselves with class. We competed to the end.”

The miracle finish wasn’t there, though, as Tow’s pass on the first play was picked off by Pirates linebacker Ty Mahaffee and Phoenix ran out the clock by taking knees.

Nichol said the Huskies had a hard night for a number of reasons, but he looks back at the season with some satisfaction.

“I’m very proud of our guys for finishing 7-3,” he said. “I thought they competed from the first to the last of that game.”

The Huskies defensive line was hammered by the loss of defensive end Ryan J. Adams, who has been a big-play performer all season. Adams turned his ankle during pre-game warmups and, despite a heavy tape job, was limited to “seven or eight plays,” Nichol said.

“Defense has normally been our savior, the ones who kept us in the game,” he said. “When you go into the game with a two- or three-way starter that we anticipated having, and have to take him off the depth chart all the way around two or three hours before the game, that hurts. We had one less sub at defensive end and one less at fullback. They were out there an awful lot instead of getting a rotation, getting some rest.”

The absence of Adams most of the game made a big difference for Keenon, who missed a blocker who cleared lanes for him.

“He was something to run behind. He would go all out and he was easy to run behind,” Keenon said.

Jutte said the Huskies made some mistakes, but they played well together.

“Always, in every game, you can fix things. It was a team effort, a team loss, but I really feel like we played to our team capability this game. The better team just got the best of us.”

Nichol said he was happy with his team’s improvement in “character,” evidenced particularly in the penalties tally. Sweet Home finished with four penalties for 35 yards; Phoenix had eight for 65.

“We had no unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in this game,” Nichol said. “

He said the Huskies didn’t seem to suffer from the four-hour bus trip to the game.

“I was wondering how we would travel that length of time. I thought the kids traveled well.”

Overall, he said, he saw his team improve in all aspects.

“We got better. We had a good group of seniors and a good group of players. They were a fun group to be around. Unfortunately it was our last game, but the last game will come at some time for everybody.”

Keenon noted that he’s played with this group since they were in flag football together.

“It’s kind of like losing my class,” he said. “It’s nice having another year. I felt we could have come out of this season undefeated into the playoffs if we’d played consistently in second half against Crook County. Junction City had their homecoming and all that stuff, but we should have won that game too.

“We’re going to lose a lot of key people, so a lot of people are going to have to step up for next year.”

Scoring Summary

SH – 0 7 14 7 — 28

Phoenix 14 3 14 7 — 38

First Quarter

P — Triston Hay 4 run (Tony Bazan kick) 2:53

P — Gerardo Sanchez interception return (Tony Bazan kick) :40

Second Quarter

SH — Justin Tow 1 run (Hunter Jutte kick) 2:17

P — Tony Bazan 37 FG :02

Third Quarter

SH — Brandon Keenan 58 run (Hunter Jutte kick) 11:15

P — Justin Knight 1 run (Tony Bazan kick) 7:51

SH — Hunter Jutte 14 pass from Justin Tow (Hunter Jutte kick) 3:20

P — Justin Knight 1 run (Bazan kick) :02

Fourth Quarter

P — Justin Knight 11 run (Bazan kick) 1:37

SH — Hunter Jutte 82 kickoff return (Hunter Jutte kick) 1:23

Individual Statistics

Rushing – SH: Brandon Keenon 28-171; Justin Tow 2-8; Eric Flierl 1- (-7); Total 31-172. Phoenix: Triston Hay 17-137; Justin Knight 12-76; Zach Atteberry 11-71; Tyler Hague 1-3; Total 41-297.

Passing – SH: Justin Tow 4-8-2-44. Phoenix: Triston Hay 7-10-1-108.

Receiving – SH: Hunter Jutte 3-19; Eric Flierl 1-25. Phoenix – Cole George 2-39; Tyler Hague 2-26; Ty Mahaffey 1-19; Zach Atteberry 1-16; Jessi Daniels 1-8.

Total
0
Share