Cardinals Advance

Kerry Rodd – NSO

Cromwell is headed into the Section 5 Nine-Man football semifinals after a 29-16 win over Hill City on Tuesday night, but the Cards had to earn every inch of the field in order to move to the next round.

Zion Smith scored a two-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and that was followed by Sawyer Strelnieks extra point kick to make it 7-0 after the first quarter. Smith added a second quarter one-yard run for a score and Strelnieks booted the extra point to push the lead to 14-0 at halftime. That was all the Cards could muster in the first half on the offensive side of the football.

After a scoreless third quarter the Cards picked up a big score early in the final stanza when Smith found Alex Striowski with a touchdown pass and the extra point made it 21-0 for Cromwell. The biggest play of the night occurred in the next set of plays when Cromwell’s Tyler Hakamaki slipped in front of a Hornet pass and raced the final 45 yards for a pick six. Smith added a two-point conversion pass to Brandon Fairbanks to make it 29-0.

Unfortunately for the Cards the Hornets started to rally, but even more unfortunate for Hill City was the fact that their rally ended up short. Marcus Wagner ran for a two-yard score and Brendon Gould added a three-yard touchdown jaunt. Mason Watkins caught a pass from Wagner after the first score and Wagner tacked on a two-point conversion run on the second touchdown to pull the Hornets to within 29-16, but the rally proved to be futile because it was too little, and too late for them to continue the comeback.

The win moves the Cards into the semifinals on Saturday against Floodwood in Cromwell.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com