Strong Second Half Leads Detroit Lakes Past Hermantown

Wes Vork-NSO

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Aug 30, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

A year ago it was the Hermantown Hawks knocking of Detroit Lakes in the Section 7AAAA Semi-Finals,, and things looked good again in the first half as Hermantown jumped out to an early first half lead but it was the Lakers who scored 22 unanswered points in the second half to knock off Hermantown 22-7.

Hermantown scored in the first quarter when Mitch Hiner scored on a 4 yard run and a Parker Anderson extra point made it 7-0 in favor of the Hawks. Tyler Pelofske had two big runs on the drive as he finished with runs on 10 and 16 yards.

The Hawks used pressure defense in the first half to hold the Lakers to only seven total yards of offense in the first half. The Hawks held Detroit Lakes to four rushing yards with seven of the 13 plays resulting in negative yardage. Hermantown also came up with a pick by Casey Ehnes to thwart a Lakers drive.

Hermantown’s Head Coach Daryl Illikainen told Northland Sports Online “We did a good job in the first half shutting them down, but they have a good line and it showed in the second half.”

The Lakers gained 182 of their 186 yards rushing in the second half and added a 17 yard pass to rack up 196 of their 203 total yardage for the game. Hermantown rushed for a total of 193 yards and passed for an additional 30 for a game total of 223.

Detroit Lakes opened the second half shutting the Hawks down on three straight plays, then marched 65 yards on six plays to score their first points of the game on a Michael Herzog 22 yard run, the Lakers then attempted an extra point but bobbled the hold. Holder Kirk McLoud alertly sprinted to his right and passed to Christian Tigges for the two point conversion and Detroit Lakes had their first lead of the game at 8-7.

Hermantown had their chances in the third quarter when after going three and out Parker Anderson recovered a bobbled put to set the Hawks up with a fresh set of downs. After doing a good job of moving the ball Hermantown returned the favor and turned the ball back over with a botched handoff five plays later.

The third quarter remained scoreless as they moved to the fourth quarter it when the Lakers scored 14 more points to distance themselves from the Hawks. Stephen Erb scored on a 24 yard touchdown run and caught a 6 yard touchdown pass to make the final margin 22-7.

“We had some chances in the second half” Head Coach Illikainen stated, “But we had mistakes which cost us, a few dropped balls and turnovers really hurt.” Illikainen added “Their front five did a good job on both sides of the ball in the second half.”

Still the Hawks came away with some positives including finding a productive running game to replace senior standouts Corey Anderson and Jeremy Peterson. “Those senior backs Olson and Hiner have been kind of waiting their turn and did a real nice job.” Illikainen stated. “Tonight what we take away is a great learning experience. It exposes your weaknesses right away and we want to find them and build on them and just get better, it’s the first game.”

The Lakers win ended a 13 game regular season win streak of Hermantown as they improve to 1-0 on the season. Hermantown falls to 0-1 overall as they look to re-group next week when they will face the Proctor Rails for the rights to the traveling hammer trophy in a conference and sectional battle at Hermantown .

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com