Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 38F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
Tonight
Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low 38F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
The window of opportunity for the Hood River Valley football team to win its season opener Friday in Redmond closed rather quickly – as in the amount of time it took Panther senior receiver Nathan Wachs to haul in two long touchdown passes. The talented Wachs finished with four TDs and led the host Panthers to a 44-8 Class 5A football win over the Eagles.
Wachs’ first two scores came on plays of 69 and 43 yards and gave Redmond a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter. He and junior quarterback Colton Horner would connect two more times before halftime for a 28-0 advantage before they and the Central Oregon weather cooled over the final two periods.
Though the final score may indicate otherwise, the game hinged on a couple of first-half plays that tilted the momentum solidly in favor of Redmond. The first TD strike came on a second-and-20 play, where HRV seemingly had the advantage.
“It’s always interesting, you go back and watch the film, and think it’s not as bad as it felt during the game,” HRV Coach Caleb Sperry said. “There’s a lot of positive things that happened. We did some really good things, it’s just at the wrong times did some really bad things.
“And that’s football in a nutshell. It’s five, six, seven plays that determine the outcome of the game. And that was the case here, some big plays that end up kind of flipping the game.”
Redmond’s Horner and the athletic, 6-foot-2 Wachs took advantage of Hood River’s young and shorter secondary players – all sophomores. Wachs, a senior, was the state high jump champion and also qualified for the state track and field meet in the 100 and 200 meters.
“They had a good receiver who did a good job of stretching the field, catching the ball,” Sperry said. “It definitely was not a fair match-up, but a great learning experience.”
Hood River fumbled away the second-half kickoff and Redmond scored on its next offensive series to take a 34-0 lead with 8:46 remaining in the third period. A missed point-after kick attempt prevented the game from going into the 35-point mercy rule, which calls for a running clock the rest of the game.
Hood River junior Brandon Rivera scored on a 10-yard run with 13 seconds left in the third quarter and Grady Williams added a two-point conversion quarterback sneak behind the beefy Eagle line to make the score 34-8.
There were some other positives for the Eagles. Up front, Hood River contained Redmond’s running game for the most part. Once Wachs asserted himself, that did loosen things up a bit for junior running back Kyle Littlejohn, who finished as the game’s leading rusher.
Sperry said: “We played great run defense and had a few plays where we ran the ball real well and even threw it decently, but we just weren’t consistent enough on offense. And defensively, we made them do what we wanted them to do, which was pass the ball, we just didn’t do a very good job of adjusting to the passing game.
“Our D line played great; they did a really good job. They played tough.”
Sperry said a key to practice this week will be transferring that toughness throughout the Eagle lineup. Up next, 7 p.m. Friday at Henderson Stadium, the Eagles host Gorge rival The Dalles (1-0).
“These kids know each other pretty well from playing sports together whatnot,” Sperry said. “So, I think it’s going to be an awesome game; a lot of intensity involved.
“Hopefully (we) get back to playing our style of football. We need to do a better job of getting back to being tough. Our toughness, that would be our edge. Blue collar, hard-nosed football. We’ve just got to keep nurturing that, worrying about ourselves and start executing. That’ll be our focus this week.”
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