Weaving his way to the goal line…covered in mud, Dylan Heitkamp scored with 18 seconds left Friday to hand Minster a 12-7 win over St. Henry. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
A twenty five yard touchdown pass from Brogan Stephey to Dylan Heitkamp with 18 seconds remaining foiled St.Henry’s bid for the miraculous win over Minster in the mud.
As the crowd filed out of the Wally Post Athletic Center Friday night someone from St. Henry said, “This is one to forget.”
Moments later Minster quarterback Brogan Stephey claimed otherwise, saying, “This is a game I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
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Perspective, obviously, as Stephey’s touchdown pass to teammate Dylan Heitkamp with 18 seconds left in the game foiled what looked to be a marvelous second half comeback in the mud by St. Henry, breaking the Redskins’ heart with a gut-wrenching 12-7 loss.
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After seeing St. Henry finally overcome a 6-0 halftime lead by Minster on the last play of the third quarter, the Wildcats traded punts with St. Henry until the 2:33 mark of the fourth quarter. Starting from their own 36 yard line, and having to travel 64 yards in the mud and muck, a critical pass interference call gave Minster better field position at midfield.
It gave Minster quarterback Brogan Stephey a shorter field to navigate with precious seconds winding off the clock. In the nick of time he finally hooked up with teammate Dylan Heitkamp on a post route that saw Heitkamp break no fewer than three tackles, spin and dodge, and finally stepped into the end zone with 18 seconds left in the game. A two-point conversion attempt was no good, but St. Henry could not traverse 65 yards to score in those final 18 seconds after the kickoff and the thing was settled…12-7.
As conditions go, you could not possibly have played on a worse night. The game was started in steady rain and 30 mile per hour winds, making it impossible to throw the ball for both teams. As it turned out, three-quarters of the game was played on the west end of the field, between the 40 and 25 yard lines, and by game’s end those fifteen yards looked like quicksand.
When you can’t move you get hit…Minster’s Connor Schmiesing takes a hard lick from a St. Henry tackler during Friday’s first half.
The conditions were so bad that the two teams combined attempted to convert on fourth down rather than punt 13 times. Minster converted on 2 of 8 attempts, and St. Henry was successful on 1 of five tries.
However, on Minster’s first possession of the game Stephey was able to run the football before the quicksand appeared. And with 6:30 remaining in the first quarter he bolted 27 yards through the heart of the Redskin defense of a touchdown. The extra point attempt was no good, and Minster held a 6-0 advantage.
The wind was so strong, and the gusts so threatening, that having the wind at your back was barely an advantage…only on punts. As a result, passes were underthrown against the wind, and were uncontrollable with the wind. Minster finished the game with 42 yards through the air, while St. Henry had just 28. On the ground, Minster finished with 227 yards. St. Henry had just 51.
St. Henry was bitten early by injuries, losing starting quarterback Jack Huelsman in the second quarter with an apparent knee, and replacement Charlie Werling midway through the second half, likewise with a leg injury.
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And because neither team could throw the ball, they resorted to a slug-it-out run fest that increasingly chewed up the field and made it impossible to do anything but run straight ahead.
Game plans were thrown out. The game was simplified as much as possible. To that end, Minster quarterback Brogan Stephey would end up carrying the ball 29 times, half the total of his team’s 59 rushing attempts. Those 59 rush attempts chewed up clock, kept the ball out of St. Henry’s hands, and Minster controlled time of possession 30:45 to 17:15. It was Bronco Nagurski stuff, slam it into the line and hope someone fell down before they could tackle the ball carrier.
Minster’s defense grabbed at anything it could to bring down Redskins’ quarterback Charlie Werling.
Minster led 6-0 at the half, but the exchange of field position gradually favored St Henry in the third quarter, when backup quarterback Landon Schwartz finally connected with Jared Nietfeld with a pretty pitch and catch that Nietfeld caught at the five yard line and carried into the end zone. Critically, St. Henry’s Michael Gonzalez was able to squeeze the point after attempt through the uprights and St. Henry led 7-6 with the prospects of the worsening field position making it harder for Minster to answer.
On the ensuing kickoff Stephey tried to answer…taking a handoff to the sideline and sprinting 45 yards upfield before being pushing out of bounds at the 35 yard line. But as the quarter expired and they flipped ends of the field, Stephey bogged down in the mud – the quicksand – and on one of those fourth down tries ended up turning the ball back to St. Henry.
“The field was awful,” said Stephey later. “It was frustrating because we couldn’t run the offense. All you could do was hope someone missed.”
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But after a change of possession twice, on that fourth down and a subsequent St. Henry punt, Stephey got one last shot with 2:33 left on the game clock. A post route to Heitkamp drew the interference call that gave him fifteen yards out to the 50 yard line. And from there Minster gradually picked up a yard here, 3 yards there, and converted on a critical fourth down. When he tried to throw the ball, receivers couldn’t make their cuts, and the ball wouldn’t stay on line once it was thrown. Out of timeouts, the Wildcats had to negotiate the final thirty yards and the clock.
Don’t dare drop it…St. Henry’s Jared Nietfeld cradles a 22-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter that gave the Redskins the lead.
Finally, with the ball on the 25 yard line, Heitkamp ran that same slant route and this time Stephey hit him in stride.
“I caught the ball and I knew there was no one on my hip,” explained Heitkamp later. “I looked upfield, saw some green grass, broke a few tackles, got in the end zone and started screaming out of my mind. I was just living in the moment.”
Ironically, the same field conditions that made it tough for offensive players to navigate made it just as tough for St. Henry tacklers to get a bead on Heitkamp as he wormed his way toward the goal line.
“We had to fight hard all night,” added Stephey, his uniform barely identifiable for the mud and grime. “It was frustrating to try to play in that, but we trust each other, and we had a point of emphasis this week to just find a way. And that’s exactly what we did. We found a way. Wow…I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life.
Minster coach Seth Whiting shook his head over the conditions, the irony of the last three minutes, appreciative for the combination of resilience and patience shown by his players.
Critical call…this interference call on a pass intended for Minster’s Dylan Heitkamp gave the ‘Cats better field position prior to the winning score.
“Both teams had to play in it,” said Whiting. “And when you look at the field now you can see where both teams got stuck. When we got outside the hashes they got their touchdown and we got the one at the end. We just got on enough clean grass to have a clean ball to throw on that play. Every time the ball was snapped it got covered in mud, but both teams had to play in it, and both teams played really hard.
“Our kids are great to trust,” he added. “And we told them all week this would be a slugfest and they’d just have to find a way to survive. Last year we blocked a kick to win, and this year we got the late touchdown.”
Told that Stephey had carried the ball 29 times, Whiting winced over the work load and tried to do some quick math.
“That’s way more carries than I want him to have in any game,” he said.
Which is probably true. But sometimes you just have to find a way.
Brogan Stephey didn’t seem to mind.
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