Sports
Sioux silence Honkers
Matthew Semisch
09/02/2014
WESTHOPE - All but five of the 37 nine-man high school football teams in North Dakota have at least one thing in common this year: A front-loaded schedule.
Nearly every team in this classification opened the 2014 season last week with a pair of games only a handful of days apart.
Westhope-Newburg-Glenburn (W-N-G) was no exception to this, but after opening the year 2-0, that burden doesn’t seem like such a bear.
The Sioux already sit at 2-0 in Region 3 play after routing Kenmare-Bowbells-Burke Central (K-B-BC) on Saturday in Westhope. This came a mere five days after W-N-G opened its 2014 account last Tuesday with a 28-8 win at Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood (M-L-S).
The early part of the season is as much about ironing out a team’s kinks as it is racking up wins, and W-N-G did both of those things on Saturday. It wasn’t always pretty, but despite a handful of mishaps, the Sioux largely looked very effective against the visiting Honkers.
“We’ll take the W,” Sioux head coach Tom Nesvold said. “It could’ve been prettier from us today, but we’ll win ugly if needed and, so far, we’ve been doing what we have to do.
“Today I think we played a little more physical (than against M-L-S) and we played with a little more intensity. I liked how our lines played, we got off the ball quicker and we were able to run the ball more effectively, and everything else will come. We made some mistakes, but we’re already getting a lot better.”
Two of the mistakes Nesvold referred to came in the first half. Sioux quarterback Reese Schell lost control of a bad snap on the Sioux’s first play of the game from scrimmage, and he later threw two interceptions while the Sioux were in K-B-BC territory.
Suffice to say W-N-G’s passing game wasn’t on lock, as Schell finished 3-for-7 passing for 37 yards and those two picks. What the Honkers couldn’t stop on Saturday, however, was the Sioux’s ground assault.
Schell and W-N-G running back Chase Conway both burned the K-B-BC defense with their feet. Schell led both teams in rushing on Saturday with 151 yards on 15 carries and two touchdowns, while Conway scored three times and gained 116 yards on 11 attempts.
After their early turnover, the Sioux didn’t take much longer to start asserting their dominance. They quickly got the ball back after the Honkers turned it over on downs at the W-N-G 25, and that was as close to the Sioux’s end zone as K-B-BC got for the first three quarters.
Apart from two fourth-quarter touchdowns that came long after W-N-G put the contest out of reach, not much worked offensively for the Honkers on Saturday. That was in large part down to the Sioux defense, led by defensive end Chas Tofteland and his four sacks on the day.
On the other side of the ball, the Sioux had little trouble pushing themselves up the field. K-B-BC had chronic issues regarding the containment of Schell and Conway, and the Sioux running back opened the scoring with less than five minutes into the game with a 25-yard scamper.
Conway then put the Sioux even further ahead 1:45 into the second quarter. The W-N-G line opened up a big hole, one of many it created on Saturday, allowing Conway to fly through and score on a 32-yard run.
“All year, it’s going to start up front for us,” he said in crediting the offensive linemen in front of him. “And I think that’s what you saw today.
“Our linemen really brought it today, and they made my job and everyone else’s easier.”
Up 14-0 at that point, the Sioux quickly doubled their advantage with 14 points scored in 46 seconds.
W-N-G was awarded a safety with 8:35 left until halftime when a Honker fumble went through the back of the K-B-BC end zone.
Schell then scored on the Sioux’s resulting possession by breaking away for a 31-yard touchdown run down the W-N-G sideline.
Schell scored again with 8:36 left in the third quarter before Conway picked up his third touchdown of the game 37 seconds into the fourth.
Nesvold was pleased with his offense’s ground game on Saturday, as he should have been.
“If we can run the ball, we’re going to run the ball,” he said. “You own the clock that way, and that’s the best defense you’ve got because if (the opponent) don’t have the ball then they’re not going to score often or even score at all.”
The Honkers’ two touchdowns on Saturday, both of which came in the final 6:12 of the game, were inconsequential. K-B-BC running back Konnor Keysor’s two-yard scamper and one from three yards out by fellow Honker tailback Dax Nelson hardly padded stats.
W-N-G is at home again this Friday against New Town in Glenburn. The Eagles, who forfeited against the Sioux last year after fielding too few players, last week beat Parshall-White Shield and lost to M-L-S.