Dwight-The Howells-Dodge Football Team came up one game short of reaching the Class D-1 State Championship game as the Jaguars fell 22-12 at East Butler in the Semifinals Monday night.
After no one scored in the 1st quarter, the Tigers' Dalton Bohac connected with Camden Robley on a 52-yard TD strike to make it a 6-0 game in favor of East Butler with 10:04 remaining in the 2nd quarter.
The two connected again from 17 yards out with just over a minute left to go until halftime, and the Tigers led 14-0 at the break.
The duo hooked up for the third time on a 20-yard TD connection with 6 minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter, and East Butler extended their lead to 22-0.
The Jaguars got on the scoreboard at the 2:02 mark of the 3rd period as Dylan Horejsi scored from 4 yards out to make it a 22-6 ball game in favor of the Tigers.
Howells-Dodge's Dax VanLengen hooked up with Jon Yosten from 17 yards away with 10:54 left to go in the game to make up the final score.
Horejsi was limited for the Jaguars as he only had 59 yards rushing on 25 carries.
VanLengen went 8-16 for 71 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
Connor Blum totaled 17 tackles while Kade Hegemann made 15. Ryan Macholan notched 11 while Yosten made 9.
East Butler amassed 222 yards of total offense, including 171 through the air, while the Jaguars totaled 133 yards of offense, 72 coming through the air.
Head Coach Mike Speirs. "We were never able to establish anything run wise, and you got to credit their D-line. Big kids, they're tough. We knew coming in it was going to be a heck of a matchup for us. And we'd seen that they'd improved. Watching film that they'd improved. And we'd hoped that we'd improved enough. But apparently they improved a little more than we did."
Speirs sums up his thoughts on the game."For the most part we played really good defense I thought. We just had a couple breakdowns in pass coverage. And the Robley kid and the Havlovic kid they present matchup problems. They're big kids, they catch the ball. Havlovic made a catch on our sideline that's as good a catch as you're going to see in High School Football. Too many mistakes. And you can't do that against a good team at this time of year."
Howells-Dodge ends the season with an 11-1 record.
VanLengen finished with 871 yards passing and 15 touchdowns on the season while Horejsi racked up 1,622 yards rushing and 25 touchdowns on the year.
Jordon Brichacek had 362 yards receiving and 7 touchdowns on the season.
Hegemann made 164 tackles on the season while Yosten notched 133.
Speirs was asked about his expectations when the season got underway. "We knew we returned a lot of experience. We knew there were some teams out there like East Butler that was returning a lot of experience. So a lot of it comes down to how your regular season goes and how you get seeded in the playoffs, and when your matchups happen. And really wasn't sure to say that we had any expectations of this or anything before the season. We were just trying to be the very best that we could be."
Assistant Coach Luke Dobbins. "The boys gave everything they had and fought to the very end. This senior class is really going to be missed, they provided us with great leadership and showed the younger guys what it takes to be successful."
The Jaguars say goodbye to VanLengen, Blum, Ely Henrickson, Yosten, Brichacek, Macholan, and Zach Lund.
These seniors were very valuable members of this Howells-Dodge team for the 4 years they suited up in the Green, Black, and Silver, and will be sorely missed, you can bet on that.
The Jaguars have to be saddened by who they lose to graduation, but excited by who they bring back.
Howells-Dodge welcomes back Horejsi, Luke Rocheford, Josh Brester, Kade and Lane Hegemann, and Mitch Yosten, among others.
The Jaguars have a good strong core nucleus coming back, and I look for Howells-Dodge to come back stronger than ever next season.
The Howells teams of old always won their state championships with the power run game, and by overwhelming people and being the more physical team.
And I thought the Jaguars did that up until this last game against East Butler. The Tigers shutdown Howells-Dodge's run game though, and I thought that was the biggest difference in the game.
So knowing that that happened the way it did, the Jaguars have to work on getting bigger, faster, stronger, and more physical in the weightroom and on the playing field this offseason.
I think Howells-Dodge has a great chance to be in this position again next year, but the Jaguars need a big offseason of growth and development.
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