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Crusaders rally to beat Custer

Red Cloud running game controls second half




Time and again Red Cloud’s bruising fullback, Jevon Hacker, plowed his way deep into the Custer backfield.

Time and again Red Cloud’s bruising fullback, Jevon Hacker, plowed his way deep into the Custer backfield.

PINE RIDGE— Seven minutes into a Friday afternoon road game against host Red Cloud, the Custer Wildcats led 13-0, had the ball on the Red Cloud six-yard line, second down, needing just four yards to get first-and-goal on the two, and take a commanding 21-0 lead. It didn’t happen. Red Cloud recovered a fumble on the two-yard line, clawed their way back into the fight, and then took control of the game to win, 46-35.

Even after the fumble recovery, the Crusaders still had their hands full. They were eventually forced to punt, and Custer’s Dathon Elmore returned the punt down to the Crusader 30- yard line. A dropped pass by Kaleb Wragge forced quarterback Elmore into a fourth-and-five situation from the Red Cloud 26, and that resulted in a Riyen Carlow interception, which he returned to his own 20- yard line.

Despite having the ball, the Crusaders could get no momentum because their electrifying quarterback Ale Rama, injured in a previous game, didn’t have the legs at that time to get things rolling, and although he is their best defensive player as well, he was missing tackles on defense. Just as he was starting to find his old form, getting 28 yards on three carries, he was picked off and Custer took over on their eight.

The Wildcats could not move the ball, and were forced to punt. Red Cloud took over on their 44, and after some bungled plays, which included a fumble recovery, Rama found an opening and ran for 28 yards down to the Custer 17-yard line. He hooked up with freshman Jayshawn Morrisette on the next play, converted the 2-point on a keeper, and Red Cloud was back in it, down 13-8.

With just a minute left in the half, Custer got the ball down to the Crusader 12- yard line, but just couldn’t quite punch it in. That would change in the second half, as the sun came out, after a day of overcast drizzle, and Custer took the opening drive down to the Crusader one-yard line, Elmore, Daniel Sedlacek and Macaiah Grace getting it done on the ground, and then Elmore capping it off by scoring from a yard out to make it, 21-8. Things looked rosy.

That is when Carlow decided to involve himself in the Twilight Zone play of the year. Taking the kick off at about his twenty, Carlow headed up the sideline, right in front of the Custer bench, and disappeared in a scrum of at least a dozen players. While pads collided, limbs flayed, and bodies entangled, somehow Carlow stepped out from the fray, on his feet, with the ball, and nothing between him and pay dirt but sixty yards of wide open pitch. He ran it in for the touchdown. Rama got the two-point conversion, and with 8:38 in the third to play, Red Cloud trailed, 21-16.

The Red Cloud defense then stepped up and forced a Custer punt. Six plays later, Rama ran 64 yards for a touchdown, and also ran in the two-point conversion, and Red Cloud finally had the lead, 24-21, with 4:31 remaining, third quarter.

“They got tired,” Red Cloud Head Coach Duane Big Crow said, when asked why Custer could not maintain control of the game. “They just got played out.”

The Red Cloud bleachers contain lots of big, strong boys who do not want to play football, and so Big Crow struggles with a thin bench: “They understand they have to go full blast on both sides of the ball. We been conditioning them all year, we run endurance about 25 minutes and then go into our hit and tackle drills.”

Custer Head Coach Russ Bailey feels his boys “got frustrated and lost their confidence”: “We just didn’t make big plays and they did. We’re gonna watch film, but the tackling was horrible. We just didn’t put any shoulder pads on guys.”

One of the main guys Bailey’s Wildcats struggled to tackle was fullback Jevon Hacker: “Instead of hitting him low, we kept hitting him up top, and he’d run right over the top of us.”

The real problem was Rama played his way back into form, despite his iced up leg, and ended up with 235 yards on 19 carries. Hacker had 88 tough inside yards on 19 carries, and Manuel Arviso chipped in 32 yards on seven carries. His contributions gave Rama and Hacker a rest so they had energy left to play solid defense, at which, both excel. Arviso will be especially needed in the play offs. Rama did what he had to do in the air, going 8-17, for 135 yards, three touchdowns, although he also had two interceptions. His main target was Carlow, who had four receptions for 96 yards and two touchdowns.

Elmore was 4-12 in the air for Custer, for 87 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He ran for 48 yards on five carries. Grace led Custer with 82 yards on 18 carries. Sedlacek on 54 yards on 11 carries.

After taking the 24-21 lead, Red Cloud recovered a Custer fumble and converted that into eight more points, on a 53-yard pass from Rama to Carlow. Five minutes later Rama and Carlow hooked up on a 34- yard pass and it was 38-21, and the game was pretty much over.

Red Cloud has one game remaining, against Little Wound, but when asked how many games he had left to play, Big Crow deadpanned, “Four.” Which is how many he would play if he came back from Vermillion with the state 11-B championship.

Obviously, any hope of getting anywhere in the play offs is dashed if you have to play perennial powerhouse Winner in the first round. The win over Custer, and a win next week may allow the Crusaders to avoid that pickle. Big Crow: “We lost a big game to Todd County, which is a good team, but (the kids) wanted this one so bad, because they didn’t wanna play Winner again in the play offs. (Red Cloud) are all disciplined kids, they practice, and they know what to do. They make mistakes, they pick each other up.”

Custer has their homecoming next week against Lead/Deadwood. The Diggers have won five straight, and at 6-1, are certain to make the play offs, and are coming off a much-needed week of rest. That will be a tough game.

Over all, despite a 4-2 record, Winner is still the class of West River Region 4 11-B. Aberdeen Roncalli, 4-3, tops a surprisingly mediocre Region 1. Canton beat SF Christian in a Region 2 showdown. Christian was considered the class of 11-B but the C-Hawks 29-12 win over the Chargers was no fluke. They are 6-0, and look like the best 11-B team in the state. In Region 3, Bridgewater Emery/Ethan is on top at 5-1, despite Mount Vernon/Plankinton being 6-0 in second place.

(James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com)

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