Hawks Hammer Rails

Kerry Rodd – NSO

Photos to Follow

One of northern Minnesota’s longest running football rivalries resumed on Friday night when the Hermantown Hawks traveled to Proctor to take on their next-door-neighbors the Proctor Rails. For the fourth year in a row the Hawks came away with the traveling trophy known as the Hammer, but more importantly the win improved the Hawks to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in the always tough Sea-Range Conference.

Football fans barely had time to sit down before the Hawks took control of the game by blocking a Proctor punt and scoring on the three-yard return by Zack Brendon making it 6-0 with less than two minutes off the game clock. Cody McShane tacked on the extra point kick and the Hawks went up 7-0.

Thomas Madison added another first quarter score when he crashed in from the three-yard line and McShane’s extra point kick pushed the Hermantown lead up to 14-0 at the end of one quarter.

While Hermantown was building momentum the Rails were struggling to be consistent on the offensive side of the ball. At times the Rails showed promise in their offense, but the Hawks would either come through with a big defensive play, or the Rails would make a key mistake, at the wrong time.

Meanwhile the Hawks added two more second quarter scores on the power running inside of James Lindberg who powered into the end zone with a two-yard touchdown run and a one-yard touchdown run and with McShane adding one more extra point the Hawks led it 27-0 at halftime.