Early miscues cost Cedar Catholic

HARTINGTON — First half miscues and a stifling Battle Creek defense put the Cedar Catholic Trojans in a hole in the first half as Battle Creek came away with a 30-12 win here at the Hartington Community Recreation Complex Oct. 6.

“We can’t keep digging ourselves holes against really good teams like Battle Creek,” Cedar Catholic coach, Chad Cattau said. “Their defense is too good to give away points and once they get ahead it’s very difficult to come back.”

A partially blocked punt set the Braves up at the Cedar Catholic 34 for the first score of the night and an interception early in the second 12 minutes led to a field goal to make it 10-0 with just under 10 minutes left in the first half.

The interception set the Braves up at the Trojan 22, but the Cedar Catholic defense stiffened and forced a 35-yard field goal.

“I really feel like our defense played a great game,” Cattau said. “We really put ourselves in some bad spots the first half.”

Battle Creek would score again before the half following another Trojan turnover.

Cedar Catholic fumbled at its own 22 and it took the Braves and Trent Uhlir just four plays to get to the end zone and make the score 17-0 heading into the intermission.

The Trojans showed some life after the Battle Creek touchdown. Breiton Whitmire took off on a 41yard dash on the first play after the ensuing kickoff to set Cedar Catholic up at the Braves’ 26.

Ty Thoene ran for 10 yards after the long run by Whitmire to get the ball inside the 20. Thoene gained another yard then Whitmire rumbled for four yards, but a thirddown sack put the ball back to a fourth-and-16-play which resulted in an incomplete pass and the threat ended.

It took exactly 15 seconds for the Trojans to get things rolling in the second half.

That’s how long it took Whitmire to go through and around the Battle Creek kickoff team on his way to an 81-yard touchdown.

The extra point kick was missed, but the Trojans were back in the game 17-6.

Battle Creek went back to Uhlir to answer.

Uhlir scored his third touchdown on the night then disaster struck again for the Trojans.

Cedar Catholic quarterback, Braeden Reifenrath was sacked and fumbled at his own 13, and the Braves scored again to make it 30-6 with 3:51 left in the third quarter.

“Our kids played hard all night long,” Cattau said. “We just made too many mistakes and they took advantage of them - good teams do just that.”

“Hey, Cedar Catholic is a young team,” Battle Creek coach, Andrew Carlson said. “They played very hard and they are going to be a force to be reckoned with. I think they will be a tough team the rest of this season. They just made too many mistakes tonight.”

Cedar Catholic did get a touchdown in the fourth frame as Reifenrath hit Nolan Becker behind the Battle Creek defense for a 70-yard pitch and catch with just under six minutes left in the contest to reach the final score.

“We’ve got plenty to work on but like I said, I like our effort,” Cattau said. “We just played a really good football team tonight.”

The Trojans will travel to Ponca this week to take on the 3-4 Indians on Oct. 13 to prepare for the final regular season game of the season with Norfolk Catholic back here in Hartington.

BC (6-1) 7 10 13 0 - 30 HCC (4-3) 0 0 6 6 - 12 FIRST QUARTER BC: Trent Uhlir 25 run, Cameron Korth kick, 3:42. SECOND QUARTER BC: Korth 35 field goal, 9:56.B BC: Uhlir 11 run, Korth kick, 5:54. THIRD QUARTER HCC: Breiton Whitmire 81 kickoff return, Kick failed, 11:45. BC: Uhlir 2 run, run failed, 5:26. BC: Blake Borchers 7 pass from Jaxon Mettler, Korth kick, 3:51. FOURTH QUARTER HCC: Nolan Becker 70 pass from Braeden Reifenrath, run failed, 5:59.

Cedar Battle Creek FIRST DOWNS 6 14 RUSHES/YDS 24-100 49-211 RECPT/YDS 9-109 2-20 PASSING 9-21-109 3-7-20 TOTAL 33-209 51-231 RUSHING

Cedar - Breiton Whitmire 11-75; Ty Thoene 4-19; Braeden Reifenrath 8-4; Karsan Albers 1-2.

PASSING

Cedar - Braeden Reifenrath 9-21-109 1TD.

RECEIVING

Cedar- Nolan Becker 1-70 1TD; Jaymison Cattau 6-22; Breiton Whitmire 2-17.

TACKLES

Cedar- Jacob Steffen 2.5; Paul Kleinschmit 1.0; Hunter Bensen 3.5 1TFL; Breiton Whitmire 2.0; Hunter Kuchta 1.0; Keyton Arens 6.5; Sam Wiebelhaus 0.5; Matthew Loecker 3.0; Ty Thoene 4.0; Jaymison Cattau 5.0; Jared Rutar 2.0; Karsan Albers 7.0; Ryan Pick 4.0.