“Rothsay won the turnover battle in tonight’s hard fought game and came away with the win,” reported Hillcrest Head Coach Derrick Clark.  “The injury bug bit us again as we lost starting quarterback Caden Fischer in the third quarter to a leg injury.  I thought we did good job battling back in the second half after being down 14 at the half. We were driving for a game tying touchdown to in the third quarter when Caden got hurt and we lost some momentum.  Rothsay did a great job running the ball and hitting on some deep pass plays.  They took better care of the football than we did and got the win.” 

Rothsay scored first when sophomore quarterback Tanner Heier connected with tight end Noah Fiedler on a one yard touchdown pass with 2:01 left in the opening quarter.  The two-point conversion run by Colby Larson gave the Tigers an early 8-0 lead.

Hillcrest pulled even with 8:57 left in the first half when Thomas Zwiers scored on a one yard run and Caden Fischer added the two point conversion run.

Rothsay regained the lead at the 4:15 mark of the second quarter on an 8 yard TD run by Larson and a two-point conversion run by Heier, putting the score at 16-8.  With 3:57 left in the half Larson scored on a two yard run, making the halftime score 22-8, Tigers.

“Our defense played well all night,"  Rothsay coach Josh Nordick said.  “We got contributions from everyone and stuck to our game plan.  Our offense was able to move the ball but we need to clean up the penalties.”

Hillcrest cut the lead to 22-15 at 9:15 of the third quarter on a 47 yard TD pass to Zwiers from Fischer and an extra point kick by Simon Strommen.  Larson added his third touchdown of the night on a 50 yard run and Nick Wiezorek carried the ball into the end zone for the two-point conversion to give Rothsay a 30-15 lead with 17 seconds left in the third quarter.

The final TD of the game came when Larson picked off a pass and returned it for a score.

Rothsay had 406 yards of offense with 294 coming on the ground.  Larson ran for 175 yards on 19 carries.  Heier completed 8-of-11 passes for 109 yards and also carried the ball 9 times for 66 yards.  The top receiver for Rothsay was Noah Fiedler with five receptions for 91 yards.

“We had a good night," Nordick said.  “But too many mistakes.  I saw a lot of good runs and a good team effort tonight.” 

The Tigers will play host next week when they take on the Wheaton Herman-Norcross Warriors in Rothsay.

Hillcrest had 200 rushing yards and 70 passing yards for a total of 270 yards in the game. Thomas Zwiers led the Comets in both rushing (15-111) and receiving (2-57) yards and scored two total touchdowns.  Simon Strommen (6 solo tackles, 5 assisted tackles) and Caden Fischer (9 solo tackles, 1 assisted tackle, INT) led the Comets defensively.  

“Caden came up with a big interception to start the second half that led to our second touchdown,” said Clark.  "I was real pleased with our defensive effort. Our tackling and pursuit both seemed better than what he had done the previous games.”