Wildcats pick up first ‘W’ in 65-27 blowout

HARTINGTON — For the first time during the 2023 campaign, the Hartington-Newcastle Wildcats put together a complete, solid four quarters of football.

And for the first time this season, they walked off the field here at the Hartington Community Complex with a win.

And it was a big one — 65-27 over Wakefield on Friday.

It seemed the game was going to be an interesting match-up between the two schools until the second 12 minutes.

The score was tied 14-14 heading into the second quarter, but by the time the referees blew the whistle for the intermission, the Wildcats were sitting on a 37-point lead.

“It was great to get a win,” Hartington- Newcastle coach Rusty Fuller said. “We scored on every possession of the first half, which gave us a good cushion.”

In fact, it instigated the continuous clock for the second half, which slowed down the scoring.

The Wildcats did put up a couple of scores in the third quarter to increase the lead to 65-14 before the Trojans scored a couple of cosmetic touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make the 65-27 final score.

Riley Sudbeck had a huge night for this Homecoming game.

Sudbeck completed 12-of-14 passes for 231 yards and four touchdowns. He also ran for 124 yards on 16 carries and a couple of additional scores and ran in three conversion runs to have a hand in more than 40 points in the contest.

His main targets were Cole Heimes, who grabbed five passes for 83 yards, and Dayton Sudbeck, who hauled in three aerials for 68 yards.

Heimes had three touchdowns while Dayton scored twice.

Kale Korth had 89 yards on the ground on 11 carries and also found the end zone twice. “We will need to shore up our run defense,” Fuller said. “Wakefield hurt us a little bit in their option game — we’ll work on that.” Wakefield did run for more than 250 yards in the game, but a lot of those yards came after the game had been decided. Korth paced the defense with 13 tackles; Brayden Lammers had nine stops. Tyler Hutchinson and Ayden Rosener each had a quarterback sack and Riley Sudbeck recovered a fumble.

“The next few District games will be huge for our football program,” Fuller said. “We need to find a way to get three more wins.”

Those three wins Fuller is referring to begin Friday when Hartington-Newcastle will host 4-1 Tri County Northeast at the Hartington Community Complex. A road trip to Laurel to take on Laurel-Concord-Coleridge and a home date with Homer will finish out the season.

HNS (1-4) 14 37 14 0 — 65 WAK (0-5) 14 0 0 13 — 27 Hartington-Newcastle Wakefield Rushing 41-276 32-261 Passing 13-17-242 2-7-15 Ttl Yds 518 276 PASSING

Riley Sudbeck 12-14-231 4TD; Austin Sudbeck 1-3-11.

RUSHING

Riley Sudbeck 16-124 2TD;Austin Sudbeck 4-(-14); Cole Heimes 5-39 1TD; Kale Korth 1189; Tyler Hutchinson 1-12; Jason Heimes 4-6.

RECEIVING

Ty Opfer 1-11; Cole Heimes 5-83 2TD; Dayton Sudbeck 3-68 2TD; Kale Korth 3-46; Lincoln Grutsch 1-34.

TACKLES

Riley Sudbeck 3 1FR; Ty Opfer 3; Cole Heimes 4; Dayton Sudbeck 7; Kale Korth 13; Carter Kelly 1; Brayden Lammers 9; Tyler Hutchinson 3 1SACK; Jason Heimes 2; Gabe Reyes 1.