BRANDON – A young O’Gorman team might’ve been able to pick up a significant early season win over Brandon Valley on Friday night – if they’d remembered to bring the ball with them.
The Knights turned the ball over four times – three fumbles and an interception – and the Lynx shook off a slow start to score 20 unanswered points across the second and third quarters to pull off a 20-14 win in a rematch of last year’s 11AAA state championship game that leaves both teams at 1-1 through two weeks.
The Lynx got a touchdown run from Tate Johnson and touchdown passes from Lucas Slack to Carson Mashlan and Jackson Hilton and used a late fourth down conversion to put the game away when the Knights were still alive for a comeback.
After BV had gone up 20-7 on Johnson’s two-yard run, the Knights took advantage of a Lynx miscue to give themselves a chance. The Lynx fumbled deep in O’Gorman territory as the hosts were driving for a game-clinching score, and the Knights answered with a long and methodical drive that ended with a 2-yard Tanner Paden touchdown run to cut the lead to 20-14 with 3:45 to go. But by taking as long as they did, the Knights had little choice but to try an onside kick, which was recovered by BV’s Sam Scholten.
That brought up the fateful fourth down, and the Lynx converted with 2:56 to go and the Knights out of timeouts. O’Gorman stopped BV on the next fourth down but were left with only 20 seconds, and couldn’t muster anything in two plays before the clock ran out.
It was an impressive showing at times from Brandon’s offensive line, an inexperienced unit that’s starting to grow up for coach Chad Garrow’s squad.
“We’re so young in the front lines with all new guys and they just weren’t being physical enough,” Garrow said. “We still got a lot of work to do there. We’ve got to find what guys are gonna be physical enough, or we’re not gonna win the kind of games we want to win.”
The Knights moved the ball well for much of the night, both in the air and on the ground, even while still playing without injured senior Conor Pavelko. But the turnovers loomed large. Garrow liked his team’s ability to get their hands on the ball on defense; O’Gorman coach Jayson Poppinga lamented those mistakes by his offense.
“You don’t win championship type of games against quality teams when you have five fumbles or whatever it was,” Poppinga said. “We had the yards, we had the drives, all that stuff to put ourselves in position to win and we just shot ourselves in the foot and lost.”
The fact that the Knights moved the ball well on the road against a good team was encouraging to be sure, but that also made the mistakes that much more frustrating. The Knights are lacking in experienced veterans, and this was a game they could have won, and such a win would’ve been big for their confidence heading into next week’s Dakota Bowl.
“You never want to lose so obviously you’re frustrated but the positive is we know we can compete at this level,” Poppinga said. “Next week we’re playing an even tougher Roosevelt team and we have to be improved and not make those silly mistakes.”
As for the Lynx, they avoided an 0-2 start with the win, and Garrow hopes his team can build on it with three consecutive non-city opponents awaiting them.
“The good thing is our offensive line just keeps getting reps and our kids are getting more experience,” Garrow said. “It’s the same with our defense. You get some young kids in there to build some depth and experience that you hope pays off down the road.”
Follow Matt Zimmer on Twitter at @ArgusMattZ.
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Brandon Valley holds off O'Gorman in mistake-filled title game rematch - Argus Leader
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