By Andrew Holtan
Brookings Beacon
BROOKINGS – It was a tough home opener for the Brookings football team on Friday night as the Bobcats lost 35-7 to Watertown.
The Arrows scored 28 points off of turnovers, including two defensive touchdowns in the victory. Brookings head coach Carter Gordon said the Bobcats youth showed on Friday night.
“I don’t want to hang our hats on this every week, but I mean we have some inexperienced guys. It’s not that they don’t have the ability. They have the fight in them. We just don’t have the experience, and so we tend to play like our age sometimes,” Gordon said.
Watertown (2-0) got the ball first and drove to the Bobcat 28 yard line but then turned it over on downs. Brookings (0-2) picked up one first down but then Baker Hanson had a pass intercepted on the Bobcat 47 and Watertown took over.
The Arrows were able to find the end zone a few plays later as Kaeden Himmerich found Braden Jenc for a 29-yard strike. That made it 7-0 with 2:15 to go in the opening quarter.
It looked like that score was going to remain until halftime but the Bobcats muffed a punt with just over a minute to go until the half. The Arrows then had the ball inside the 30 and cashed in on the turnover as Himmerich found Kutler Swenson for a 10-yard score to push Watertown’s lead to 14-0 at halftime.
Things went from bad to worse on the second play of the second half for the Bobcats as Hanson was intercepted again and this time Swenson brought it back for a touchdown. That made it 21-0 just under a minute into the third quarter.
Gordon said turnovers are something that his team needs to work on and if they sure that up, they might find themselves on the other side of the result.
“We have to find ways to not shoot ourselves in the foot, and those are things that we can sure up. … We have to take care of the ball. … Anytime you lose the turnover battle, obviously the ball isn’t going to go your way at the end of the game. We sure up some things here and there. We’ll be fine,” Gordon said.
Brookings then put together a long drive that went inside the Arrows 10 yard line. However, they were stopped on the two yard line on fourth down and Watertown took over just before the end of the third quarter.
On the first play of the fourth quarter Lincoln Schutt took a hand off and broke free. He outran Bobcat defenders for a 90-yard touchdown and that made it 28-0 with 11:46 left in the game.
Brookings would drive into Watertown territory again on its next drive but was unable to come away with points again. This time, Hanson was intercepted and Caden Corey took it 82 yards to the house to push the lead to 35-0 with just under eight minutes to go.
Brookings was able to get on the board with under a minute to play in the game as Colten Walsh powered his way into the end zone with 50 seconds left. That made the final 35-0.
Gordon said he was proud that his team didn’t give up on Friday night and thinks that his team is close to putting it together, despite the big loss.
“We just have to continue to build on what we do well, and I think we kind of showed that there [in the fourth quarter] on offense for sure. … We have to get better at reading some of our keys and things like that. But we’re right there, and we talked about that at halftime with the boys. … We just have to realize that we’re a young group of guys and we’re dealing with some injuries. I’m very proud of the last two games and the fight [this team] had,” Gordon said.
He added that his coaching staff will continue to preach to his players about the scheme and technique as they prepare for a matchup with Huron on the road next Friday.
“We haven’t stopped teaching our scheme and techniques,” Gordon said. “We told the boys after week one that our guys got away from their technique when they got punched in the mouth. Granted, it’s some of those guys’ first times under the Friday night lights, but we’re just going to teach scheme and technique like we have been, and rely on that, because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to take us home. That’s what’s going to end up winning us some of these games and going to get us over the tide.”
