Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Hawks overcome slow start to earn playoff victory
Hawk quarterback Kooper Ebel gets outside of the defensive containment to gain good yardage against the Royals.
Mason Brinkman returns the opening kickoff in the Hawks' 62-0 first-round playoff win over MMCRU.
Landon Elwood (50) goes low while Lance Berends (70) comes in high to take down MMCRU's Brenin Stodden in the Hawks' 62-0 playoff win.
Having defeated MMCRU by a 62-0 margin in the regular season, the chances that Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn could duplicate that score in the first round of the Class A football playoffs seemed remote. But the Hawks did just that, handing MMCRU a 62-0 loss Friday night at Peterson Field.
The path to H-M-S's first playoff win since 2010 was slightly different than the regular season meeting with the Royals. In the first quarter of the September 25 contest, H-M-S scored on "drives" of two, one, two and five plays. While only needing three plays to score their first touchdown in Friday's playoff game, the Hawks later bogged down with penalties, lost yardage plays and a turnover.
"It was a slow start," Hawk coach Tyler Horkey admitted. "We had come off a big win [against Lawton-Bronson] and had to settle back to reality."
Quarterback Kooper Ebel scored the first two touchdowns on runs of 17 and three yards. Travis Kamradt added both two-point conversions and then scored on 23-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter.
Ebel reached the end zone again on two short runs and the defense padded the lead with DJ Doyle's interception return that made the halftime score 48-0.
While preferring a better start to the game, Horkey thought the Hawks responded to the challenge.
"Figuring things out and going through adversity was what we needed," he noted.
H-M-S scored its final touchdowns on a 45-yard run by Connor Dodd and a 71-yarder by Doyle in the third quarter.
Horkey said the Hawks "picked up the pace" as the game progressed, which got the offense moving. H-M-S rushed for 442 yards, led by Ebel with 150, Kamradt with 137, Doyle with 75 and Dodd with 52.
Ethan Diehm had one pass reception for 25 yards and Dodd had one for 13.
The defense allowed just 70 total yards and intercepted four MMCRU passes. Ebel had two interceptions while Doyle and Dodd each had one.
Those with tackles for loss were Lance Berends (2.5), Gabe Bronstad, Landon Elwood and Keaton Graves (1.5) and Mason Brinkman (1.0). Solo tackle leaders were Berends and Graves with six, Elwood with four, Bronstad with three, and Kayl Jacobsma and Kamradt with two each.
The large scoring margin allowed for more substitutions in the second half.
"We got guys playing time," Horkey said. "We knew this game was one we could get better from. We'll get better from this."
The final score also eclipsed H-M-S's previous postseason records for points scored (48 in 2008) and margin of victory (35 in 1996).
