Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – Two defenses that didn’t want to give an inch, and didn’t, were the stars of the show Friday night at Butch Pedersen Field.

But it was a couple long passes that interrupted the slugfest in the trenches and made the difference, as Dike-New Hartford defeated West Branch 9-7 in 1A non-district action.

The Bears’ defense held the Wolverines to just three first downs and nine rushing yards in the first half.

“We got to our gaps,” junior lineman Tate Frantz said. “All the linebackers were able to find holes. We just went from there.”

But Dike-New Hartford junior wide receiver Carson Costello got loose twice to set up both Wolverine scores in the first half.

The Wolverines started the first scoring drive in great field position at the Bears’ 42.

Four plays later quarterback Colin Meester floated a 28-yard pass to Costello on the right sideline.

The Bear defender jumped but couldn’t reach the ball. Costello was right behind him and snagged it on the Bears’ 6-yard line.

“I run a great route and my quarterback, we’ve been working on that connection in practice and our chemistry, he just threw it up to me and I jumped up and had to make a play,” Costello said. “I jumped up and saw (my feet) were in.”

West Branch held, but a 24-yard field goal by Cole McCumber gave Dike-New Hartford a 3-0 lead with 3:48 left in the half.

The Bears couldn’t move the ball and punted with the Wolverines taking over on their own 37-yard line with 2:39 left in the half.

On the second play from scrimmage Meester took the snap and Costello did his thing.

“I just run a great route; I kind of faked inside and then had to go outside and do a sideline,” Costello said. “The quarterback got me the ball.”

The Bears’ defense reacted as if DNH was going to run the ball, enabling Costello to get beyond the last line of defense.

Meester found the wide-open Costello, and the only reason it didn’t result in a touchdown is that it was a bit underthrown, enabling the defense to catch up to the receiver at the Bears’ 8 after a furious chase.

It took four tries, but Meester finished the drive by sneaking it in from the 1-yard line on fourth-and-goal.

The Bears blocked the point-after attempt to leave it at 9-0 heading to halftime.

“We made a lot of mistakes early,” Frantz said. “We tried to fix that, and I think we fixed a lot of the mistakes we made in the first half.”

“We needed more energy,” Rios said of the team’s halftime adjustments. “And that’s the way we started the second half. We’re going to learn from this and get better next week.”

The Wolverines had one deep drive in the second half, but West Branch held on a sack by Cooper Gates on a fourth-and-8 at the Bears 36.

The problem was West Branch had trouble mustering any kind of sustained drive until the final 7 minutes of the game.

Taking advantage of good field position after a botched punt, the Bears started their touchdown drive at the DNH 38.

On a third-and-16 from the 27-yard line, quarterback Connor Rios lofted the ball to senior Joe Hamann who turned completely around before catching the ball in stride for a touchdown.

“I cross over kind of in the middle of the field,” Hamann said of his route. “Then I just run straight; it’s very simple. I pretty much turned 180 degrees.”

He never lost his balance.

“It was a good ball,” he said. “Thankfully I was pretty much back in the end zone; I was already there, so I didn’t really need to run after that.”

“I just laid it out there, and he made a play and we scored,” Rios said, deferring credit to his line and wide receiver.

The play put the Bears back in the game with 5:25 left.

“The team was really excited about getting points on the board,” Hamann said.

While DNH hadn’t moved the ball much in the second half, it did what it had to do in the final 5 minutes to ice the game, coming up with three first downs as it moved from its own 10 to the Bears’ 48 as the clock expired.

Costello accounted for one the key third-down conversions in that stretch with a 12-yard sideline grab.

Meester threw for 136 yards and the Wolverines rushed for 73 yards.

The Bears passed for 102 yards and rushed for 112.

The Bears were thumped in week one by 3A Williamsburg, but clearly held their own against a good team from the same class.

“This week we competed 100 times better,” Rios said.

“I think we made a lot of improvement,” Frantz said. “Offense, defense, special teams, and I think it showed a lot. I think we’ll make a lot of improvement from week two to week three.”

This was the first home game without Butch Pedersen on the sideline after his death last spring. Pedersen, a Hall of Famer, was head coach since 1983.

Pedersen’s family went out for the coin toss as honorary captains.

                                               DNH                WB       

First downs                             9                        11

Rushing-yards                         30-73               37-112

Comp-att-int                           10-18-0           10-18-0

Passing-yards                          136                  102

Punts-avg.                               5-40                 5-31

Fumbles-lost                           1-0                   0-0

Penalties-yards                       6-45                 4-40

Dike-New Hartford  0  9  0  0  –  9

West Branch              0  0  0  7  –  7

DNH – Cole McCumber 24 field goal.

DNH – Colin Meester 1 run (kick blocked)

WB – Joe Hamann 27 pass from Connor Rios (Reese Gingerich kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSING – DNH: Noah Borcherding 14-38, Cole McCumber 7-19, Micah Walston 5-8, Colin Meester 4-8. West Branch: Connor Rios 11-56, Zach Capper 10-40, Cooper Gates 10-19, Cale Seydel 6-(-3).

PASSING  – DNH: Meester 10-18-0 136. West Branch: Rios 10-18-0 102.

RECEIVING — DNH: Carson Costello 4-110, McCumber 1-14, Devon Lotts 2-7, Jack Hoehns 1-4, Tyler Bakken 1-1, Walston 1-0. West Branch: Joe Hamann 1-27, Jake Swisher 2-26, Seydel 4-22, Reese Trepanier 2-18, Shae Farmer 1-9.

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