Trojans fall in battle of the unbeatens

OAKLAND — Cedar Catholic faced off Friday in a battle of Top 5 unbeatens.

Cedar’s hopes of an undefeated season ended at the hands of defending state champion Oakland-Craig, who hung a 52-14 defeat on the Trojans.

The Trojans now stand 6-1 overall and 2-0 in district play as CCHS heads to Ponca for a 7 p.m., Friday matchup.

The Trojans started strong, forcing Oakland-Craig to punt after their first three plays. The Trojans then blocked the punt. The Trojans were not able to take advantage of the O-C miscue, though, as Cedar fumbled the ball on the recovery, and the Knights took over on the 1-yard line.

Tavis Uhing’s 1-yard scoring plunge put the Knights on top. Caden Nelson then made good on the 2-point conversion to put the Knights ahead 8-0 with just over a minute off of the clock.

Cedar responded with a solid six-play scoring drive of its own. The drive was aided by a 46-yard pass from Tate Thoene to Carter Arens.

The Trojans then found the endzone on a 5-yard TD pass from Thoene to Connor Vlach. Blake Arens then split the uprights to make it 8-7 with 8:17 left in the opening frame.

The home team responded with a nine-play scoring drive. O-C found the endzone when Caden Nelson broke through the line on a 6-yard gainer with 4:47 left in the quarter.

Cedar again responded with a scoring drive.

“I thought we played a very good first quarter. We were right in it,” Cedar head coach Chad Cattau said. “We then gave up a touchdown and didn’t score, and then gave up another one and then things snowballed against us. We needed to respond after giving up those points, and we just weren’t able to.”

The Trojans had a chance to regroup before the second half began.

“We talked at halftime about responding to adversity and how when these things happen in life, it really shows your true character and how you handle things as a person, and in the second half we handled things better.”

Oakland-Craig is a very well coached team. They deserve the state ranking they carry, Cattau said.

“We knew we had some areas that we still needed to improve on, and Oakland did a great job of exposing some of those things,” Cattau said. “This should really show our kids that if we don’t put in a great effort each day, the results will show on the field on Friday.”

They will need that as they head to Ponca.

“Ponca will give us some very similar looks to what Crofton gave us a couple weeks ago,” Cattau said. “They run a similar offense so we should have some similarity with our assignments against their scheme. The biggest thing I am looking for from our kids is to have great effort all week in practice and then carry that over to the field on Friday.

“We need to bounce back after our effort last week, and I know these kids will be resilient and come back ready to work.” Cedar Catholic 7 7 0 0 —14 Oakland-Craig 16 24 6 6 — 52

PASSING Cedar - Tate Thoene, 12-23-173; Ty Thoene, 1-13.

RUSHING Cedar - Easton Becker, 16-30; James Christensen, 5-15; Tate Thoene, 9-1.

RECEIVING Cedar - Myles Thoene, 5-61; Noah Arens, 1-46; Carter Arens, 2-36; Connor Vlach, 2-18; Charlie Schroeder, 2-12; Alex Kuehn, 1-3.

TACKLES Cedar - Kerby Hochstein, 8; Myles Thoene, 7; Owen Heimes, 7; Brandon Rohan, 5; Jay Steffen, 5; Noah Arens, 5; Owen Dendinger, 5; Carter Arens, 4; Grant Arens, 4; Charlie Schroeder, 3; Conner Hochstein, 3; Blake Arens, 2; Connor Vlach, 2; Hunter Thoene, 1; Carson Becker, 1; James Christensen, 1; Alex Kuehn, 1; Max Steffen, 1.

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