Colby defense starts strong in home opener

After a relatively slow start, the Colby Hornets scored 28 points in the second quarter to take a commanding lead over former Cloverbelt conference rival Neillsville/Granton on Friday night. The Hornets would ultimately outscore their opponents 43-8 in their season opener, a dominating performance from a unit that hopes to compete for their third straight Marawood conference championship.

While the offense struggled to break through a tough Neillsville/Granton front, the defense came through with several big plays that would shift momentum to the Hornets. Starting with an interception by defensive lineman Levi Dommer near the end of the first quarter, Colby’s defense would force three consecutive turnovers deep in Wardog territory. These would be converted into 21 points for the Hornets and gave them a commanding 24-0 lead with six minutes left in the first half. Colby wouldn’t look back, scoring 37 unanswered points and playing their second team for a good portion of the second half.

However, things weren’t looking quite as lopsided in the first quarter. Neillsville/Granton’s defense seemed to have Colby spinning its wheels in the early going. The offense chipped away at times, but an elusive big play left them short of end zone.

“Give credit to Neillsville,” head coach Jim Hagen said about his team’s early offensive struggles. “They were doing some lineman looping and stunting, which confused our offensive line at times.”

The big leg of senior kicker Tucker Brost gave the Hornets their first points of the season when he connected on a 31-yard field goal with a minute left in the first quarter, but the fact that the Wardogs had kept the defending Marawood champs out of the end zone for the entirety of the first quarter certainly felt like a win for Neillsville/ Granton.

Or at least it would have, had Dommer’s interception in the closing seconds of the quarter not given the Hornets the ball back at a critical juncture. As well as Wardogs had managed to hold Colby’s dangerous running back duo of Caden Healy and Mateo Lopez in check, the home team was still winning the game of field position. The Hornets defense was stifling, and as such, the interception by their senior defensive lineman gave the Hornets a short field.

This time, Colby would not be denied. Senior workhorse back Caden Healy scored the first touchdown of the season for the Hornets, stretching out and getting the ball across the line on a one yard rush up the middle.

Senior linebacker and wingback Tevin Rue made several impactful plays in the first half. On offense, senior quarterback Tucker Meyer found Rue on several medium-depth routes on third downs that kept the chains moving. He also provided a third option to Healy and Lopez on the ground, taking the ball several times on sweeps and counters. However, it was on defense where Rue made his presence most felt.

With their run game floundering, Neillsville/Granton had turned to the air relatively early. During the possession immediately following Colby’s first touchdown, Wardog quarterback Bryce Erickson scanned the right side of the field, searching for an open receiver. Seeming to find a look that he liked, Erickson wound up to unleash a pass down field. He never got to the latter half of his throwing motion. Rue, who had blown by the left side of Neillville/ Granton’s line on a blitz, blasted the Wardog quarterback’s blindside, stripping the ball and sending it tumbling backwards. A mad scramble to recover the fumble ultimately concluded with sophomore Gavin Voss in the end zone with the football in his sole possession. An extra point courtesy of Brost later and the Hornets were suddenly up 17-0.

But Rue wasn’t finished making plays. On the ensuing possession, he undercut a Wardog pass and made a diving interception. It was the third straight drive to end in a turnover for the Neillsville/Granton co-op and when Meyer connected with Lopez on a screen pass that he’d take to the house several plays later, the positives of the first quarter were all but erased.

“Those turnovers really gave our players a spark,” Hagen said.

While there were certainly some eyecatching highlights from the defense, the unit as a whole played impressively throughout the evening and was the first thing that coach Hagen mentioned when asked about the game.

“Our defense played really well,” he said. “They really kept us in the game and allowed us, for a lot of the night, to have great field position. We had Neillsville backed up quite a bit and I don’t believe they crossed the 50 yard line other than the long touchdown pass at the end of the game.”

After the Wardogs’ first drive of the third quarter, they had actually been going backwards more often than not, as evidenced by the fact that they had accumulated -1 yards of total offense at that point. Even by the end of the game, they had only 76 yards and had -25 yards rushing. When one considers that 62 of those yards came on Neillsville/ Granton’s only score, a fourthquarter pass against the second string defense, the reality of just how dominant the Hornets’ defense was in their opener certainly comes into focus.

“A lot of credit, first and foremost, goes out to [defensive coordinator] Logan Rosemeyer,” Hagen said. “Week in and week out, he always has our defense prepared no matter who the opponent is. He always watches a ton of film and he really uses our Hudl program to break down what our opponents are doing on first down, second down, what their tendencies are. And then obviously the second thing is to credit our players. We’ve got some athletic kids. We’ve got some guys that are quick and can get to the football, so hats off to those guys, because they’re the ones out there playing the game. They listen all week in practice and then they execute on Friday night when they need to.”

On the ground, Healy led the way for the Hornets, amassing 110 yards on 23 carries and scoring two touchdowns. His backfield counterpart, Lopez, carried the ball 14 times for 43 yards and a touchdown. He also had two receptions for 27 yards and a touchdown. Rue had 20 yards on five carries and sophomore backup quarterback Tayt Smith had four carries for 12 yards and a touchdown in cleanup duty at the end of the game.

It was an efficient evening for Meyer behind center. He went 7-12 for 83 yards and a touchdown passing.

“I thought Tucker Meyer did a really nice job at quarterback,” Hagen said of his senior starter. “He was in command of our offense and hit some open receivers in situations that kept some of our drives alive.”

His primary target was Rue, who ended the evening with four catches for 45 yards. Senior split end Nathaniel Robida added one reception for 11 yards, making a diving catch just short of the pylon to set up the first touchdown of the game in the second quarter.

The Hornets will be facing off against another ex-Cloverbelt opponent in Spencer/Columbus next Friday in Spencer. The combined team is 0-1, having lost 54-21 to Saint Croix Central last week.

SWARMING DEFENSE -Tevin Rue (2), above, and Isaac Raatz (47), below, both recorded sacks on Friday night for Colby’s dominant defense, which gave up only 76 yards against Neillsville. STAFF PHOTOS/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD