STURGIS, S.D. — The Watertown Arrows made the long journey west on Highway 212 for their season opening football game at Woodle Field and traveled home with a 38-18 win over the Sturgis Scoopers.
The Arrows struck first following a bad punt by the Scoopers, giving Watertown great field position on the Sturgis 30-yard line early in the first quarter. Two plays later, senior quarterback Drew Norberg found wide receiver Cole Holden in the end zone for a 30-yard touchdown pass. The extra point was good and Watertown led 7-0 with 10:21 left in the first.
The Scoopers couldn’t move the ball on their next series and punted, giving the Arrows the ball on their own 45-yard line. After a loss of two-yards on a running play by Mac Young, Norberg hit wide receiver Trevon Rawdon on a 57-yard touchdown pass play to extend the Watertown lead to 14-0 following the successful point after attempt.
The Scoopers fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving the Arrows the ball back again with excellent field position at the Sturgis 16-yard line. The Scooper defense held strong, forcing Watertown to kick a 30-yard field goal by Andrew Czech. The Arrows led 17-0 with just 5:13 gone in the ball game.
“The slow start. We’ve gotta learn how to start off and be ready to play a football game when the kickoff happens,” said Sturgis head coach Chris Koletzky. “It’s something we’ve struggled with for years and you’d think with 16 seniors on the team that they would lead the way. We were lethargic starting off, we kind of saw it in the pre-game a little bit. That’s the message we give our players, don’t let them get up 17 to nothing early on. Before we start thinking we can play with teams we have to fix that and hopefully they learned from that tonight and that’s something that we don’t see down the road.”
The Scoopers got their offense on track during their next series as junior quarterback Owen Cass found Gavin Lightenberg down the left sideline with a perfectly placed pass. Lightenberg hauled in the football and took it to the house on a 79-yard touchdown to get the Scoopers on the scoreboard. The two-point attempt was no good and Watertown led 17-6 after one quarter.
Sturgis cut the Arrow lead to 17-9 on a 20-yard field goal by Dominik Smith midway through the second quarter after a 13-play sustained drive got the Scoopers into scoring position. The Sturgis defense stopped Watertown on two consecutive drives before Arrow linebacker Mack Johnson picked off a Cass throw deep in Scooper territory to give Watertown the ball at the Sturgis 20. Holden got behind the Scooper secondary and Norberg put the ball on target, resulting in an Arrow touchdown with 19 seconds left before half. The point after attempt was good and Watertown took a 24-9 lead into the locker room at the half.
The Arrows scored early in the third quarter on a 40-yard run by Colin Dingsor to give Watertown a 31-9 lead. Late in the third, sophomore running back Juven Hudson scampered 14 yards through the Scooper defense to add to the Arrow lead. Watertown led 38-9 headed into the fourth quarter.
The Scoopers had no quit and chipped away at the Arrow lead with a 22-yard touchdown pass from Cass to Hunter Harrison with just 10 seconds gone in the fourth quarter. The extra point was good and Watertown led 38-16.
The Arrows were forced to punt on their next possession and the Scoopers had the ball at midfield. Senior running back Konner Berndt broke off some good runs, moving the ball to the goal line. It was fourth down and inches and the Watertown defense held strong and took over on downs at their own half-yard line.
The Sturgis defense broke through the Arrow offensive line on the next play, tackling Hudson in the end zone, resulting in a safety. Watertown led 38-18 and kicked off from their own 20-yard line, giving Sturgis good field position at their own 39. Just two plays later, Johnson picked off his second pass of the evening on an errant pass from Cass, effectively sealing the win for Watertown with just a few minutes left in the ballgame.
“We played OK up front, we had some big plays,” said Watertown head coach John Hodorff. “Sturgis played a pretty good football game, they did a nice job against us in a lot of phases. We can almost call it lucky because we got some deep plays at times that were good, but we need to establish our run game a little bit more and work on some things. We have a lot of improvements to do.”
Watertown finished the game with 323 yards of total offense, led by quarterback Drew Norberg who had nine completions on 16 attempts, for 205 yards and three touchdowns. It was the first football game for Norberg in four years.
“This is the first time he’s played football since 8th grade,” Hodorff said. “He did a really good job for being under the fire, playing golf for the past three years, he did a nice job for us tonight. Hopefully that’s something for him to build off of. He’s going to keep getting better.”
Cole Holden caught two touchdown passes and had 54 yards receiving for the Arrows. Watertown had no turnovers and 10 penalties for 90 yards.
The Scoopers had 277 yards of total offense, led by junior quarterback Owen Cass, who completed 15 passes on 25 attempts with two interceptions and two touchdowns. Konner Berndt carried the ball 18 times for 80 yards and the Scoopers had four penalties for 25 yards. Hunter Harrison had five catches for 50 yards and a touchdown with Gavin Lightenberg adding four catches for 106 yards and a touchdown. The Scoopers finished the game with three turnovers.
“The errors weren’t mental errors,” Koletzky said. “I’ve seen a lot of sloppy football in that first game of the year where we’re jumping offsides, we’re not watching the football, we’re blowing assignments and I didn’t see that. It was technique stuff, it’s stuff we have to get better on with technique on defense with our defensive backs and just execute a little bit better, catching the football on offense and blocking. Besides that it wasn’t a sloppy game.”
The Scoopers have a tough opponent on the road in their next matchup on Friday – the Tea Area Titans, last year’s Class 11A State Champion. Koletzky emphasized that the Titans have a dynamic offense that is hard to prepare for.
“It’s a lot of prep, a lot of different formations from what we’ve heard, they do a lot of different things. We will spend a lot of time in the film room preparing for an offense that is way different than what we saw today because they’re multi-faceted. It’s going to be a big challenge for us.”
