L-N Raider Football Season starts with a loss

Beginning any high school sports season can be tough. Starting with a team that lost many of players from last year's team and playing one of the top teams in your class compounds the start.

L-N lost its opening game of the 2024 season last Friday when they traveled to Howells-Dodge. The score was 8-36.

Score by quarter:

L-N 0 8 0 0 - 8

H-D 14 6 8 8 - 36

For a first game of the season, the game was well played by both teams. Each team had one turnover and penalties were scarce.

There was no scoring in the first period until the four minute mark on the clock, but then H-D broke a 42 yard run to score and then scored again with less than a minute to play with a 39 yard pass play. The Raiders saw the running combo of Wyatt Frey and Jack Williams to move the ball in this period. L-N and H-D had an almost equal number of plays, but H-D put almost a hundred yards in their offensive production and that gave them a 14-0 lead at the end of the first period.

Quarter No. 2 began with the Raiders being held on a 4th down play and then stopping H-D on their 4th and 1 yard to go play. After that L-N took up four minutes of play to score with a 40 yard, 3 first downs drive. Frey and Williams did most of the running on the drive and Frey scored with 3:45 left on the clock. Frey also ran the PAT to make the score 8-14. The Raider momentum was short lived, however, as H-D scored again on another long play. Half time score was 8-20.

It could be tempting to say L-N controlled the last half of play in most areas . . . except the scoreboard. In the last half L-N produced over 100 yards of offense compared to less than 90 for H-D. L-N ran 32 offensive plays compared to 21 for H-D.

L-N was able to drive deep into H-D territory several times but were stopped. On one occasion they were on the H-D two yard line but fumbled the ball away. The final H-D score came with about a minute left on the clock.

Statistics:

Offense: Rushing: L-N 193; H-D 262. Individually: Wyatt Frey: 129 yds. on 22 carries, Jack Williams 56 yds. on 11 carries, Ace Wulf 8 yds. on 2 carries.

H-D: Rushing: 262 Yds. Passing: 72 yds.

Passing: Wyatt Frey: 9 of 24 passes for 52 yds.

Receiving: Jace Hoelting 1 for 10 yds., Aiden Zikmund 1 for 4 yds., Caden Culbertson 5 for 37 yds., Jack Williams 1 for 1 yd.

Defense: (Tackles: assisted-unassisted): Wyatt Frey 8-8, Riley Cannaday 4-3, Jack Williams 8-3, Aiden Zikmund 2-1, Ace Wulf 5-1, Cody Brockman 0-1, Grayhm Beck 4-1, Caleb Griffis 1-1, Cooper Heikkinen 1-0, Kole Thompson 5-1.

This week, the Raiders will travel to Blue Hill. The Bob Cats lost their opening game last week as well. The game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.