Hawks stage stirring comeback; fall to Wardens in final seconds

 

October 11, 2018

John Hamilton

FIGHTING FOR EVERY YARD - Hawk running back Nate Wilhite hangs on to the ball as Missoula Loyola's Ryan Tirrell tries to rip it loose while making a tackle in Thompson Falls Sept. 28. Tirrell has signed to play football for the Montana Grizzlies next year.

In the end, the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks were not going to go away without a fight.

And what a fight it turned out to be as the Deer Lodge Wardens scored a last-second touchdown to pull out a crazy 54-50 win over the visiting Blue Hawks in Western B football action at Powell County High School in Deer Lodge Friday night.

Almost given up for dead a few times after falling behind 26-0 at one point and 34-8 at another, coach Jared Koskela's Hawks fought back fiercely in the second half and in fact, took a 50-46 lead with less than a minute of game time remaining.

Unfortunately, the 55 seconds left were enough for Deer Lodge to march down the field and score the game-winning touchdown and add the two-point conversion for the final points in the high-scoring battle.

Koskela had toyed with the idea of taking a knee on Thompson Falls' last scoring drive, which ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Trey Fisher, in order to use up as much of the clock as possible. "Deer Lodge didn't have any timeouts left and I didn't want to give them any time to come back on us as it looked like we would score," he said. "But the kids wanted to score and then rely on our defense to end it.

"You gotta trust your players," he added. "They thought they could hold them on that last drive."

The Wardens used several pass plays to get into scoring position after that. The winning touchdown pass was a shared possession between a Deer Lodge receiver and Hawk defender Roman Sparks which was determined to be in Deer Lodge's possession.

"Kudos to Deer Lodge, they made the plays when they had to," Koskela said, "but I was really impressed with how we came back. The game ended up being about big haymakers traded back and forth and they landed the last haymaker."

Koskela is encouraged by his team's efforts as the Hawks head into their final home game of the season and senior night Friday against Florence at Previs Field. The Falcons reportedly lost a close game to Eureka last week.

"We feel good going into this game," Koskela said. "If we can play like we did in the second half at Deer Lodge the whole way, we should be competitive with Florence."

The Hawks fell behind 26-0 before Trey Fisher scored the first touchdown for Thompson Falls on a three-yard run before halftime.

After the Hawks fell behind 34-8 early in the third quarter, Fisher scored on a two-yard run and then hooked up with Brandon Zimmerman for a 58-yard touchdown pass and Kade Pardee kicked the extra point to make the score 34-22.

Now trailing 40-22, the Hawks scored again on a one-yard run by Fisher before the third quarter ended, and Pardee again added the point-after-touchdown to make the score 40-29.

Early in the fourth period, Nate Wilhite scored on a four-yard run and Pardee's conversion made it 40-36 Deer Lodge. Later on, trailing 46-36, Fisher found Zimmerman with another scoring strike, this one from 44 yards, and Pardee converted again to make it 46-43 Wardens.

The Hawks then took their only lead of the game on Fisher's fourth rushing TD of the game in the last minute, setting up the wild finish described earlier. In the final analysis the Hawks outscored Deer Lodge 42-28 in the second half of the high-scoring affair.

Fisher passed for 253 yards and two touchdowns in addition to rushing for 84 more yards and scoring those four touchdowns. Wilhite added 72 yards rushing and caught three passes for 48 more yards, and Zimmerman had three catches for 114 yards and two touchdowns.

Pardee caught three passes for 44 yards, Trevor Harris snagged five for 37 and Dakota Irvine and Sparks had one catch each for five yards apiece.

On the defensive side, Zimmerman had six solo tackles and nine total stops, Fisher had five unassisted tackles and 10 total, and Wilhite had three quarterback sacks and four tackles for losses.

Irvine added six tackles, Cody Burk and Jack Jacobson five each, and Pardee, Sparks and Trae Thilmony four apiece.

 

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