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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Hutchinson Community
College defense forced seven turnovers and turned two of them into
touchdowns as the Blue Dragons snapped a three-game season-opening losing
streak with a 33-14 victory over Northeastern Oklahoma A&M on Saturday night
at Gowans Stadium.
Twice with NEO within one
score of tying or taking the lead, the Blue Dragon defense came through with
huge plays.
First with HCC up 14-7 in
the third quarter, sophomore defensive end Thatcher Starling hit a defensive
grand slam with a quarterback sack, forced fumble, fumble recovery and
recovery for touchdown when he fell on the ball in the end zone for a 20-6
lead with 6:03 to play.
Then with HCC up 20-14 late
in the fourth quarter, freshman Matthew Pearson intercepted a Trey Munden
pass and returned it 26 yards for a touchdown and a two-possession lead with
2:19 to play.
“I was proud of the effort
of the whole team,” HCC head coach Rion Rhoades said. “People made plays
when they needed to, but we have a lot of things to clean up. When you can
come out with a win and still learn from mistakes, that’s a positive.”
Hutchinson (1-0 for the
first time since 2004), snapped an eight-game losing streak to the Golden
Norsemen, defeating NEO for the first time since 1976.
This was also the first
victory for Hutchinson in the Jayhawk-Southwest Junior College Athletic
Conference challenge in three games of the series. NEO lost for the first
time in the series.
The Blue Dragons racked up
386 total yards of offense, getting 296 yards on the ground. Sophomore
La’Darrian Page rushed for 178 yards on 28 carries and a touchdown.
It wasn’t a clean
performance for HCC, though.
The Blue Dragons committed
five turnovers of their own and had 15 penalties whistled against them for
157 yards. NEO had just one penalty for 15 yards.
“Penalties and turnovers,”
Rhaodes said. “there’s no one statistic that determines the outcome of a
game more than turnovers. We didn’t do a good job tonight. We almost cost
ourselves a win. We were lucky to only give up 14 and we forced some
turnovers that balanced things out. You want to get them and not give them.”
NEO had 304 total yards, but
only 94 yards came on the ground. Norsemen quarterbacks were picked off
three times (by Pearson, Kendall Davis and Josh Heimerman). Starling, Jasper
Simmons, Lucas Hein and Michael Brakenhoff recovered the four NEO fumbles.
“Stay strong and read our
keys and remain disciplined,” Pearson said. “If we start slipping and
weren’t mentally tough, we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this.”
The Dragons jumped out
quickly with 14 first-quarter points,
After forcing a punt on
NEO’s opening drive of the game, the Dragons went to a little trickery to
score first. Freshman tight end Dustin Weissbeck caught a bomb from receiver
Jonathan Wright for a 50-yard scoring strike to go up 6-0 after the
point-after try was blocked. HCC led 6-0 with 12:54 to play in the quarter.
Heimerman set up HCC’s next
score with a 64-yard interception return down to the NEO 6. Three plays
later, quarterback Terry McKinnon executed a perfect naked bootleg for a
1-yard score. After Bryant Johnson’s two-point conversion run, HCC led 14-0
with 9:01 to play in the half.
The Dragons missed several
chances to put the game away in the second quarter, losing two fumbles
inside the Norsemen 10 yard line, but HCC maintained its 14-0 lead at
halftime.
NEO finally broke through on
its first drive of the third quarter when returner Danny Knighton set up the
Norsemen with a short field after a 30-yard punt return to the HCC 38. Two
plays later Munden broke a 37-yard touchdown run to pull NEO within 14-7
with 12:56 to play in the quarter.
The Dragons stalled on their
next two drives, but sophomore punter Clinton Stein’s 52-yard punt pinned
NEO back at its own 12-yard line. On the first play of that NEO drive,
Starling bolted through the line and sacked Munden, forcing a fumble which
he recovered in the end zone for a touchdown. HCC led 20-6, after a missed
extra point, with 6:03 to play.
“On the fumble, I didn’t
know it was a fumble,” Starling said. “I hit the quarterback and turned
around and saw the ball on the ground, so I thought I better cover that for
a touchdown. It was a team thing tonight.”
NEO came right back with a
five-play, 72-yard drive that was capped off by Colton Chelf’s 21-yard TD
reception from Munden with 3:50 to play in the third quarter to pull the
Norsemen within 20-14.
The Dragons dodged a huge
bullet in the fourth quarter when McKinnon was intercepted at the HCC 37
yard line with 5:53 to play. NEO drove to the HCC 11, but Munden fumbled and
Simmons recovered it at the Dragon 15.
HCC was able to get one
first down, but Stein’s 65-yard punt turned the field over and pinned NEO
back at its own 4. With NEO facing 3rd-and-6 at the 8, Munden got heavy
pressure and threw a bad ball, which Pearson picked off and returned for a
touchdown.
HCC added one more late
score in the final minute, a 1-yard run by Page for a 33-14 advantage.
The Blue Dragons open up
Jayhawk Conference play next Saturday against Highland in a 1p.m. kickoff at
Highland.
GAME NOTES – This was HCC’s
largest margin of victory over NEO. The previous was 16 points in 1976. … In
his third season at HCC, sophomore punter Clinton Stein had a big debut,
punting eight times for an average of 51.1 yards per punt. His net average
was 44.0 yards. … Defensive lineman Thatcher Starling had nine total
tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss (22 yards), 2.5 quarterback sacks (20 yards),
a forced fumble, fumble recovery, touchdown and a pass broken up. … The
Dragons are now 41-34-2 in season openers, 27-9-1 in season home openers and
51-24-2 in overall home openers. … Freshman Gage McKinnis had three kickoff
returns for 98 yards, including a long of 40 yards. … The Blue Dragons
forced only 13 turnovers all of last season.
HCC-NEO BOXSCORE
PHOTO GALLERY
OTHER QUOTES
Head Coach Rion Rhoades
On getting ready for next
week …
We are going to try and get
better each week. There’s a lot of things that need to get fixed. I just
want to get better so perform better next week.
On Clinton Stein …
“Clint did a great job for
us tonight. He dropped a couple of long ones, so it was a positive.”
Sophomore Thatcher
Starling
On what’s in store for
the Dragons …
“It’s hard to say. It’s the
first game. It’s hard telling what’s going to happen. We would like to go
undefeated this season. But you never know what’s going to happen. You go
with the flow and try your best every game.”
On the defense facing
adversity …
“We just had to step up and
hold tight. They found some things that worked and we had to hold on.”
Freshman Matthew Pearson
On his interception …
“It was really nice. I
couldn’t have done it without the D-Line. If they wouldn’t have gotten any
pressure, he wouldn’t have thrown a bad ball. I was right where I needed to
be.”
On all of the
opening-game mistakes …
“Everybody makes mistakes.
We tried to correct them. As long as everybody kept playing, we were
alright. We had to fight through adversity. “ |
