Vikings can’t catch up to Trojans

The Hayfield football team made a strong comeback attempt in the third quarter, but Rushford-Peterson (R-P) tacked on a fourth quarter touchdown to beat the Vikings 38-29 on Wednesday, Oct. 16.
            The R-P Trojans got their offense rolling right away as they scored the game’s first two touchdowns.
            Hayfield Head Coach Jeff Snider said his defense made a few mistakes that helped R-P build an early 13-0 lead.
“Rushford started off with a couple of quick touchdowns as we had a couple of broken assignments and missed tackles that led to their first two touchdowns,” he said.
            However, the Vikings’ offense responded when quarterback Brady Nelson threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Patrick Towey to trim the Trojans’ lead to 15-7.
            After giving up the first two touchdowns, he was pleased with how his defense bounced back.
“Our defense was in the right most of the time as evidenced by our ability to intercept the football as well as come up with a crucial fumble part of the way through the game,” he said.
Despite the turnovers, the Trojans got the game’s next touchdown on a three-yard pass to increase their lead to 20-7.
Once again, Nelson found Towey, this time on an eight-yard touchdown pass. Towey then ran in a successful two-point conversation to reduce R-P’s lead to just five points.
“He [Nelson] had a lot of success with one of his receivers in Patrick Towey,” Snider said. “Towey is a very reliable receiver with good hands and speed to go with his quickness.”
R-P scored a fourth first-half touchdown, but their two-point conversion failed so their halftime lead was 26-15.
            He said the emphasis in the second half was to correct the Vikings’ defensive deficiencies.
“In the second half, we really focused on solidifying our defense. We corrected the small mistakes that we had made defensively in the first half that put us behind so that we would play better in the second half,” he said.
            Despite Hayfield’s defensive adjustments, the Trojans got the first touchdown of the second half on a 73-yard run, but once again their two-point conversion failed so the score became 32-15.
            After that, the Vikings made the game much more competitive by scoring the game’s next two touchdowns. The first came on a one-yard run by Karver Heydt and the second touchdown occurred when Dawson Andree returned a punt 73 yards. The first two-point conversion was successful as Luke Dudycha ran it in, but the second two-point conversion attempt was unsuccessful so the Trojans’ lead was just three points, 32-29.
            Snider was happy with how his offense adjusted to R-P’s defense.
“Our offense was able to really move the ball by taking advantage of what Rushford was giving us. I was really pleased with the execution of several players, including the decision-making of our quarterback Brady Nelson,” he said.
            However, the Trojans added another touchdown in the fourth quarter to make their lead 38-29 and the Vikings didn’t score again.
            Despite the loss, Snider was pleased with how his team played for most of the game.
“I was happy with how we played the last 40 minutes of our 48-minute game. We started off down two scores due to a couple of mistakes, but after that we played them better or even,” he said.
            He said that it will be important for the Vikings to get off to a better start when they go on the road to face Goodhue in the section quarterfinals on Tuesday, Oct. 22.
“As we work to get rolling with Goodhue, we are focusing on correcting those small mistakes and starting quicker. When we start fast and don’t put ourselves behind, we makes games competitive and give ourselves a chance to win,” he said.
The winner of Hayfield/Goodhue will face the winner of Wabasha-Kellogg/Rushford-Peterson in the section semi-finals at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26.