DURAND — Trailing 28-0 headed into the halftime break, things looked bleak for Prescott against Durand-Arkansaw on Friday. While the Cardinals could not mount the full comeback, they showed some signs of life in a 34-21 loss.

“We just came out a little more focused and ready to go,” Head Coach Jordan Hansen said. “Got back to some of the basics and were able to expose them in the pass game a little bit.”

On the first drive of the second half, quarterback Kobe Russell zipped a pass to senior Gavin Miller who was running a deep post over the middle and had his man beat by a yard thanks to a well-run route. The Cardinals had their backs up against the wall already given the score, and the touchdown came on fourth and 19. After each team came up short on their next drives, Durand-Arkansaw capitalized on short field to take a 34-7 lead.

Miller then found a soft spot in the Panther defense to catch a deep ball in stride over two defenders for a nearly 50-yard gain. Russell then found Brody Temmers who climbed the ladder for a score to close out the third. A beautiful spinner of an onside kick secured another possession for Prescott, with Russell finding Wyatt Budworth consecutively to find the end zone.

The next onside kick did not go far enough, so that was where the Prescott momentum was halted. Despite not getting it done, you could hear the senior leaders yelling to the final horn to keep the team in it and leaving everything out on the field.

“We want to make sure our leaders are keeping our team even keeled,” Hansen said. “Not getting too high when things are going well, not getting too low when things aren’t going our way. I think that’s part of the reason why you saw us fight in the second half the way we did and not just give up.”

On the field, it was Miller that stood out to Hansen, breaking loose on multiple deep routes. He said Miller will have to continue to get open to keep the offense versatile.

Prescott’s next game is on the road against Ellsworth to open conference play Friday. Ellsworth is off to a 1-1 start against two schools from the La Crosse area and started to get hot right in time for the rivalry. Non-conference did not go Prescott’s way at 0-2 after Durand-Arkansaw and a 40-7 loss to Northwestern, but they know they have a winning team in the Cardinal locker room.

“We’ve got to get back to a lot of the little things. It seems like a lot of these little mistakes that we make end up costing us,” Hansen said. “It starts with stepping with the right foot and being in a good stance… We can do those things and we’ve shown we can do it, we just haven’t done it consistently.”

The big rivalry matchup is at 7 p.m. Friday in Ellsworth.