HUMPHREY — Sometimes lights can be deceiving.
The scoreboard lights read Archbishop 50, Wolfpack 22 Thursday night. What the numbers didn’t show is how the Wolfpack battled the Defenders up and down the field.
The first round of the Class D2 State Football Playoffs pitted two familiar teams. EPPJ and AC (formerly Humphrey St. Francis) have played many times in the postseason. The play on the field was physical, points were earned, not given, between the two teams as the Defenders advanced and the Wolfpack (4-5) saw their season come to an end.
“It was one of the better games we played all year,” Co-Coach Nick Heithoff said about the play on the field. “I feel like we out-physicaled them tonight and that’s hard to do. That’s a dang good football team. They’re number one in the state for a reason. For three quarters, we hung with them.”
After the Defenders scored on their opening possession, EPPJ senior quarterback Kellan Hoefer led the Wolfpack down the field to knot the score. He converted a fourth down scramble into a new set of downs on the Defenders’ 15-yard line. Then, facing another fourth down, Hoefer gained six yards down to the two-yard line where, on the next play he punched it into the end zone. Grady Drueke’s two-point conversion knotted the score 8-all with 1:53 left in the opening quarter, much to the chagrin of AC fans in the stands.
EPPJ elected to go with a squib kick on the kickoff which Defender Tucker Czarnick picked up and returned 45 yards for a touchdown. The return gave the Defenders momentum which led to 34 unanswered points before the Wolfpack answered back in the fourth quarter.
Held scoreless in the second and third quarters, EPPJ got things going in the fourth quarter. Relying on the running game, EPPJ got the ball down to the Defenders’ two-yard line where senior Dylan Kolm then bulled his way into the end zone. Again, Drueke added the two-point conversion.
Following a Defenders’ touchdown by Ethan Wieseler, the Wolfpack got the ball back late in the game. Hoefer then gave EPPJ fans a highlight to remember. The senior signal-caller broke tackles and raced down the sidelines 53 yards to score.
Coaches Heithoff and Matt Euse both expressed how proud they were of the effort Wolfpack players gave.
….See more at this week’s Elgin Review.
