Wolves dampen Blue Jays’ Homecoming party
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
Watford City picked up its third straight varsity football win of the season, and its first region win victory on Friday as the Wolves rolled over Stanley, 21-0, to spoil the Blue Jays’ Homecoming festivities.
Brandon Sandvick rushed for two touchdowns, while Keegan Thompson ran for one touchdown to lead the Wolves in the win.
After a scoreless first quarter, Sandvik got the Wolves on the scoreboard with 11:14 left in the first half on an 18-yard run to put Watford City on top, 7-0, at halftime. Sandvik scored his second touchdown of the game with 9:43 left in the third quarter on a 23-yard run.
Keegan Thompson, Watford City’s quarterback, scored the Wolves’ final touchdown of the game with 3:12 left in the third quarter on a 62-yard carry.
Jonathon Dunn was good on all three extra point conversions.
“It was a hard-hitting game on Friday night,” stated Justin Johnsrud, Wolves’ head coach. “Stanley brought a lot of pressure in passing situations. This week we will work on pass protection and getting the ball out when we see a blitz coming. We still need to get more balance between the pass and run game. We’ve made improvements each week, but still have not played a complete game.”
Watford City was penalized 10 times for 105 yards in the game, and those penalties hurt the Wolves.
“We played kind of flat offensively in the first half, missing some assignments,” stated Johnsrud. “And we had a couple of big plays taken away by penalties.”
Watford City completely dominated the ground game as the Wolves rolled up 258 yards, while holding the Blue Jays to just 22 yards. But the passing game was in Stanley’s favor as the Blue Jays held a 126 to 116 yard advantage over the Wolves.
Thompson was the Wolves’ leading rusher as he gained 142 yards on 21 carries, while Sandvik carried the ball 10 times for 84 yards.
Thompson only completed three of six in the passing department, but all were for big gains as he connected with David Kline on a 60-yard completion and had 28-yard hookups with Jonathon Dunn and Dalton Wright.
“Defensively, we played well,” stated Johnsrud. “Stanley had trouble moving the ball on the ground. We held them to under 30 yards rushing and only gave up 150 total yards for the game. We will need to concentrate on pass drop assignments as we will see more and more passing in the next couple of weeks.”
Beau Heiser led Watford City’s defense with five tackles, four of which were solo.
This week, the Wolves will host Griggs County on Saturday, Sept. 20, with kickoff slated for 2 p.m.
“Central Dakota has lost a couple of close games early this season and has been improving each week,” states Johnsrud. “They have a good quarterback who throws the ball well and runs the ball effectively. We will need to play assignment football on Saturday to be successful.”
1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final
Stanley 0 0 0 0 0
Watford City 0 7 14 0 21