S-K outruns PCM for key 2A District 7 win

S-K outruns PCM for key 2A District 7 win
By CRAIG MURPHY NDN Sports Writer
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2007 11:08 AM CDT



After all, Dahms knew his Mustangs hadn't seen the last of Sigourney-Keota quite yet.

"I thought the momentum was good, but I was holding my breath because I knew these guys could score awful fast,"Dahms said. "I knew one point was nothing. It was absolutely nothing. But I was hoping that if our defense could have came out right away and stopped them, I would have felt pretty good. But we just had trouble stopping them."

That indeed turned out to be the case.

The Mustangs took their last lead with 4:44 left in the third quarter, but the Savage Cobras responded in this key Class 2A District 7 battle.

With 38.9 seconds left in the third, S-K capped off a 67-yard drive with a one-yard touchdown run to go up 24-17 after a successful two-point conversion.

S-K rushed for 401 yards on the night, including two more touchdowns in the fourth, to pull away to a 38-17 victory that snapped PCM’s 14-game district winning streak. The game left the teams tied at 5-2 (4-1) with two weeks left. The teams are in a three-way atop District 7 with Collins-Maxwell-Baxter, who plays PCM in Monroe Oct. 26.

All week, Dahms had expressed concern about S-K's single wing offense, which competing teams like PCM only see once a year.

It's hard," the coach said. "Our JV is running their offense (in practice), and obviously we're not as skilled at it. We're running against a JV. When you get a varsity team out there doing that that's run it for years, it makes it a lot more effective. That's why they like this single wing down here, because they know that. They know that nobody's going to be able to practice against that as you'd like to. It's tough."

Tough would also be a suitable word to describe PCM's luck in the first half, as numerous scoring opportunities were not reflected on the scoreboard.

PCM punted the ball early in the first quarter. The S-K punt receiver dropped the ball, and PCM recovered on the S-K 29. The Mustang drive fizzled at the 10, however, as PCM was unable to convert a fourth-and-three.

Following a bad Savage Cobra punt, PCM again had excellent field position, starting at the S-K 37. The Mustangs only advanced two yards before being forced to punt.

S-K continued to set PCM up for scores, and on the next drive the Cobras fumbled the ball away once again. PCM recovered on the S-K 2, and three plays later Zach Myers scored to put the Mustangs up 7-0 with 1:05 left in the opening quarter.

Even with his team grabbing the lead, Dahms was worried about the potent S-K offense.

"I noticed that after our first touchdown, I just thought that when they came back out, they were like a mad hornet there," Dahms said. "It seemed like they picked up their tempo quite a bit and got it going. They did a nice job with that."

Indeed they did. The Savage Cobras kept the ball in their hands the next drive, and drove 59 yards. Dillon Horning capped the drive with a 4-yard touchdown run, his first of four trips to paydirt on the night. A two-point conversion put S-K up 8-7 with 9:09 left in the second quarter.

The Cobras went to the air only three times all night, including twice on their next drive. Nathan Hemsley's first pass was nearly picked off, and his second was picked off by Drew Vander Beek, who returned the ball to the S-K 18.

Despite the excellent field position, the Mustangs were again unable to capitalize, having to settle for a 27-yard Seth Streeter field goal with 3:58 left in the half to go up 10-8.
“Huge," Dahms said of the missed opportunities. "They really gave us a chance to seize the momentum right away. It took us a little bit to kind of figure out what they were doing against us on defense. I thought we had some success from time to time. It was going back and forth a little bit. We would try this, they would counter with that. They played us really tough, defensively. They did a nice job. "

'But they did give us a number of opportunities to really take advantage of things," Dahms added. "A couple of times we were able to take advantage, and sometimes we just didn't. We had trouble moving it."

After Horning's second touchdown put S-K back in front 16-10 with 1:32 left in the first half, the Mustangs had another chance.

A 32-yard pass from Tyler Dahms to Cole Van Ryswyk brought PCM to the S-K 6 with :20.7 left. Two plays later, Dahms tried to sneak into the front right edge of the end zone. Officials ruled the quarterback was down a yard short of the end zone and in bounds. PCM was unable to get another play off.

"They said he was a full yard in bounds," coach Dahms said of his son. "I thought he was out, and all of our coaches were saying he's out of bounds, he's out of bounds. We were slow getting the play in and getting set up. I think our kids thought Tyler was out of bounds. We weren't very quick about getting back. We had planned, if that happened, we were going to come up and spike the ball and give us one more play or at least a field goal. I think everybody just felt we were out of bounds, and it wasn't (the call)."

When asked how much a touchdown there could have changed the game, the coach shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know," Dahms said. "It would have been nice to have had that score. Any points tonight would have been good."

With S-K holding PCM's usually potent ground attack to just 99 yards on 33 carries, the Mustangs took to the air much of the second half. Tyler Dahms ended the night 11-of-27 for 172 yards, but a number of incomplete throws were within inches of being completions.

"I was a little surprised how well they were able to play us on pass defense," coach Dahms noted. "They were playing man-to-man a lot of times. I just thought we'd be able to get a guy a little more free than what I saw. At times we had Gavin (Burns) open, and we probably went to the well a couple more times than we should. But I knew he had the speed."

"Sometimes Tyler was a little off, sometimes we had dropped balls, and sometimes we just had no time to throw," Dahms added. "The passing game, at times, was not good in all three phases. We were not catching balls that I think should have been caught, we were not throwing maybe as well as we should have, and sometimes we just didn’t have the protection. It just didn't go as well as I thought it might."

One area that did go as well as Dahms hoped was special teams. Wyngarden averaged 42.8 yards on his four punts, compared to an 8.5 yard average for S-K's punts. Streeter's kickoffs average 48.7 yards, more than 13 yards better than S-K's average. In addition, Vander Beek was able to down one of Wyngarden's punt on the S-K 1.

"We spent a lot of time with it," Dahms said of the special teams unit. "I'm really happy with coach (Shaun) Hudnut and the job he's been doing with our special teams. They did a good job. I told the kids I thought special teams was going to be a big factor, because I thought that was going to give us good positioning. If we traded punts, then we were going to gain."

Before hosting CMB next week, the Mustangs first have to travel to Eddyville this Friday to take on the 1-6 (1-4) Eddyville-Blakesburg Rockets.

"The formula is just take it one game at a time," Dahms said. "I told the kids we can't look (ahead) at CMB. We've got to take care of Eddyville. If we get beat by Eddyville, we're pretty much done. We have to take care of Eddyville, and then we'll go from there."

Since there is no freshman game, Friday’s kickoff has been moved up to 7 p.m.
At Sigourney

Scoring by quarter

PCM 7 3 7 0 17

S-K 0 16 8 14 38

Scoring plays

First quarter

PCM -1:05 - Zach Myers 1-yard run (Seth Streeter PAT good), P 7-0.

Second quarter

S-K - 9:09 - Dillon Horning 4-yard run (2-point run by Keaton Greiner good), S 8-7.

PCM - 3:58 - Streeter 27-yard field goal, P 10-8.

S-K - 1:32 - Horning 1-yard run (2-point run by Greiner good), S 16-10.

Third quarter

PCM - 4:44 - Gavin Burns 37-yard run (Streeter PAT good), P 17-16.

S-K - :38.9 - Horning 1-yard run (2-point run by Kory Schwenke good), S 24-17.

Fourth quarter

S-K - 5:04 - Horning 2-yard run (2-point run by Horning good), S 32-17.

S-K - 3:40 - Greiner 39-yard run (2-point run no good), S 38-17.

Team statistics

PCM S-K

First downs 11 18

Total yards 271 419

Rushes-yards 33-99 62-401

Passing yards 172 18

Passing (C-A-INT) 11-28-0 1-3-1

Penalties-yards 3-20 2-12 Fumbles-lost 0-0 4-3

Intercepted 0 1

Sacks 0 3

PCM statistics

Rushing (C-Yd-TD): Burns 14-74-1, Myers 7-26-1, Joe Gilson 3-4-0, Tyler Dahms 6-(-)5-0, Keegan Van Soelen 3-0-0.

Passing (C-A-Yd): Dahms 11-27-172, Wes Van Wyngarden 0-1-0.

Receiving (C-Yd): Burns 4-56, Gilson 2-38, Cole Van Ryswyk 1-32, Drew Vander Beek 2-21, Van Wyngarden 1-15, Joel McCalester 1-10.

Tackles (Solo-total): Kyle Kane 11-17, Van Soelen 6-10, Burns 4-9, McCalester 5-9, Johnny Williams 5-7, Vander Beek 2-6, Paul Dobbie 1-5, Travis Curtis 3-5, Gilson 4-4, Dahms 3-3, James Slykhuis 2-2, Myers 0-2, Brandon Kain 0-1, Van Ryswyk 0-1, Dane Jenkins 0-1, Jonnie Willemsen 0-1.

Interception: Vander Beek 1.

Fumble recovery: Burns 1, Gilson 1, McCalester 1.

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