"This game came down to two factors for us,” assessed Brandon-Evansville Head Coach Dan Johnson. “First, our lack of depth hurt us and Verndale capitalized by controlling the line of scrimmage in the second half. We played hard and gave it everything we had but we didn't have much left in the tank. Second, two fumbles ended two promising drives and a high punt snap gave Verndale a short field when the score was 14-8."

Following a scoreless first quarter, B-E struck first when Logan Haburn ran 11 yards for a TD.  Ryland Yeats was successful on his two-point run and the Chargers led 8-0.  Verndale responded with a 64 yard TD pass from Shawn Schmitz to Jeremy Haskin, cutting the lead to 8-6 at the half.

The Pirates took a 14-8 lead in the third quarter on a 14 yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion run by Corby Kern.  Schmitz then hit Haskin with a 30 yard touchdown pass to extend the Verndale lead to 20-8 at the end of three quarters.

A 4 yard TD run by Jaden Schulke and a two-point conversion run by Hollister Heinz increased the Verndale lead to 28-8 in the fourth quarter.  Brandon-Evansville completed the scoring when Micah Fuller connected with Yeats on a 10 yard TD pass.  Fuller then hooked up with Stephen Hamilton for the two-point conversion pass, putting the final score at Verndale 28, B-E 16.

"I am extremely proud of our effort in this game,” commented Coach Johnson. “We kept fighting through adversity and we made some necessary steps in the right direction on the offensive side of the ball. We are walking away from this game as a better team and that is always our goal."

Brandon-Evansville finished the game with 262 yards of offense (220 rushing, 42 passing), while Verndale had 239 (108 passing, 131 rushing).

B-E was led by Fuller (4 completions, 11 attempts, 42 yards, 1TD, 12 carries, 86 yards), Haburn (18 carries, 98 yards 1TD) and Yeats (2 catches, 16 yards, 1TD).  Defensively, Haburn had a pick and was in on 6 tackles.  Solomon Wales had 6 solo tackles and 7 assisted tackles to top the chart.

For Verndale, Haskin caught 2 passes for 94 yards a pair of touchdowns, Kern ran for 84 yards on 17 carries and Schmitz was 4-for-9 passing the football for 108 yards and two scores.

Brandon-Evansville received the number 4 seed in Section 4 9-Man and will host Sebeka on Tuesday night in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs.  As the number two seed, Verndale will get a home game against Bertha-Hewitt.