The Prescott Cardinals received the opening kick in last Friday night’s game, hosting the Ellsworth Panthers. The Cardinals began the opening drive pounding the ball up the middle with Aiden Russell leading the way. The Cardinals chipped away at the Panthers defense until it came to a fourth down at the Panther’s 15-yard line. With just two yards to go, the Panthers forced a fumble that was recovered by number 71, sophomore Sam Allyn.

The Panthers offense took over, but the Cardinal’s defense forced them to punt after just three plays. Russell led the Cardinal’s back down the field, fighting for every yard before quarterback Grant Stanton scampered through the Panther defense for a 30-yard touchdown with 1:39 left in the first quarter to lead 6-0 after a fumbled extra point snap.

The Panthers responded with a 26-yard touchdown by junior running back Alex Quade, but it got called back for a holding penalty that brought up third and long. Senior Shane Lange caught a wide receiver screen to bring up fourth and eight from the Cardinals 19-yard line. Senior quarterback Mason Anderson threw a fade route to junior Jack

See FOOTBALL, Page 16 Janke. Janke made a great play on the ball and the defender was flagged for pass interference. On second down and goal to go, Quade punched in a four-yard run and the extra point by junior Chase Snyder gave the Panthers a 7-6 lead with 11:54 remaining in the first half.

The Cardinals took the ball back and ran it back down the field. On a nine-yard run, Stanton put the Cardinals in position to score deep in Panther’s territory at the one-yard line. The Cardinals offensive line got low and cleared just enough space for Russell to punch it in to make it 12-6 with 2:32 left in the second quarter. The Cardinals went for two to take an eight-point lead, but the Panthers defense, led by #34 Quade, stopped Russell short at the goal line.

Sophomore Bo Hines took it upon himself to change the momentum of the game on the next kickoff and took it 78 yards to the endzone. After the extra point, the Panthers led 14-12 with just 1:50 left in the quarter.

The Cardinals two-minute offense couldn’t get any more points on the board with such little time and were forced to punt.

Ellsworth took over at their own 25-yard line with just 25 seconds to play. Quade ran for 16 yards before Anderson kept the ball and scrambled to the Cardinal’s 43-yard line before a timeout halted the clock with 9.7 seconds remaining. Mason Anderson threw one more deep pass for Janke near the endzone, but Cardinal’s junior Sam Murphy came up big with the defensive play, swatting the ball away from the Panther’s receiver.

Janke returned the opening kick of the second half and broke some Cardinal tackles to give the offense the ball at the 34-yard line. Quade took the ball 15-yards up the middle and was brought down by junior Benny Rohl at the 49-yard line. On the next play, Quade took the ball back up the middle, cut back to the left and ran 50 yards for another Panther touchdown to lead 21-12 with 10:48 to go in the third quarter.

On the next possession, a Cardinal’s pass was intercepted by Janke. Later in the quarter, Janke caught another ball, this one coming on offense for a 21-yard touchdown to bring the lead to 29-12. The Panthers would score one more time on a Quade four yard touchdown run with 2:59 left in the game to take a 35-12 lead.

The Journal caught up with both coaches after the game.

“It’s a first-year offense, I think you’re just going to keep getting better and better each week,” Coach Hansen said. “We came out strong, but we didn’t finish very well, so we’ve got to figure out how to do that. Our quarterback, it’s the second game under his belt, he had his first week of practice last week, this was only his second week of practice this week. We made some changes, so we had some guys in some new spots. We just have to keep getting better and keep grinding, we’ll get this thing turned around eventually.”

“First of all, I tip my cap to Prescott,” Panthers Coach Rob Heller said. “Those guys came out ready to play and they are a program on the rise and a really tough football team. They came out and got really physical with us. I told the guys that we’ve got to do a better job getting off the bus, but they’ve been doing a really good job this far in this young season of responding to halftime adjustments. I kind of put it on our offensive line to take over the ballgame and grind out a W here. We talked about how important it was to get the ball coming into the second half and make it a two-score game, which we did. I think that really gave us some momentum and that kind of took some weight off our shoulders. The kids did a really great job of executing out of the half again.”

It was clear the Panthers flipped the switch in the second half of the game.

“It’s something we haven’t been doing a great job of the past few years. Normally, it’s the teams adjusting at halftime and extending the lead on us. I just attribute a ton of it to sophomores getting tons of experience last year. A lot of the seniors are three-year starters and the experience is starting to pay off,” Heller stated. “They are able to make those adjustments and execute. For a sophomore like Bo Hines to step up like he did, that was huge. We felt like we were kind of treading water and then he kind of turned the momentum around for us going into halftime.”

Quade led all ball carriers with 167 yards on the ground on 21 carries. Anderson finished with 80 yards through the air after completing six of 11 pass attempts. Janke led all receivers with four catches for 64 yards for the Panthers.

Russell led the Cardinals with 157 yards on the ground while Stanton chipped in another 48. Cole Dravis also ran for 28 yards on five touches.