HURON The Huron Tiger defense was the star of the show Friday in a 10-0 shutout victory over the Aberdeen Central Golden Eagles at Gene Brownell Complex in Aberdeen.
Both teams come out of the game with 3-4 records.
The story of the first half was the defense for both teams doing a good job of tightening up or causing a turnover to stall a drive.
Huron got the opening kickoff and Colton McNeil came out firing, finding Anderson Porisch for a 14-yard strike. However, McNeil lobbed a deep pass on the next play and was intercepted by Aberdeen.
The Golden Eagles leaned on their size to push the Tigers backward in the run game, picking up two first downs, but the Tigers defense stiffened up, forcing a punt after Aberdeen had eaten up five minutes of clock.
Huron then had their longest drive of the first half, covering 62 yards on 16 plays, picking up five first downs as McNeil spread the ball to four different receivers on the drive. Unfortunately, McNeil and Landon Hulst did not get a good read on a pitch, causing a fumble that Aberdeen recovered on their own 23.
Quarterback Colby Dauwen scrambled for 11 yards to get an Aberdeen first down, but the drive stalled out at that point.
Huron did get a 19-yard connection from McNeil to Mason Jurgens, but ended up punting as well.
Big sophomore fullback Joey Dallmann took the first three runs of the first Golden Eagle possession of the second quarter, gaining 21 total yards. Hurons Kolby Hofer was called for a low hit on defense, leading to another first down for Aberdeen, but the drive stalled from there.
Huron followed with a three-and-out.
The Golden Eagles followed with their most productive drive of the half, using a mix of Dauwen and Dallmann runs along with a big 12-yard outside pitch to Ridley Waldo to get down to the Huron 31. The Tigers defense then held fast, forcing a turnover on downs with a hair more than two minutes on the clock before halftime.
The Tigers showed their intent on the first play as McNeil launched a pass down the field to a wide-open Porisch, but he left the ball short, causing Porisch to have to come back to the ball and the defense to make a play, causing the ball to fall incomplete.
After two productive runs by Thackory Hansen, McNeil found Porisch for a big play on fourth down, picking up 22 yards into Aberdeen territory.
A pair of McNeil tosses to Hulst picked up 24 yards and got inside the red zone. On third down, McNeil found Porisch down to the goal line. With the Golden Eagle defense looking at the Tigers tall targets, backup running back Jonathan Peterson came out of the backfield and caught the one-yard touchdown pass with 29 seconds left in the half. Micah Larson added the point-after kick to make it 7-0 heading into half.
The Golden Eagles got the ball to open the second half and showed a passing game that wasnt there in the first half as Dauwen completed a pair of passes before the ball was turned over on downs.
Huron had a quick three-and-out and the Golden Eagles continued working through the air, gaining two first downs, but on a controversial call, the officials ruled the ball had come out of Waldos hands before he hit the ground, and the Tigers covered it up for the turnover.
Huron was able to get a 14-yard pass from McNeil to Hulst and a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on Aberdeen to push the ball to the Golden Eagle 13 yard line, but Huron went backward from there and Larsons field goal attempt was blocked.
Huron forced a turnover on downs on the Aberdeen 30, and after a pair of incompletions, McNeil found Blake Ellwein just ahead of the goal line. Huron was unable to punch the ball in on three attempts, but Larson did connect for a 23-yard field goal to push the score out to 10-0 as the third quarter came to a close.
Aberdeen used broken tackles to gain a first down, but Huron then shut down the Golden Eagle offense, forcing another turnover on downs in Aberdeen territory.
Huron made sure to keep the ball safe, running into the larger Aberdeen defensive line for little gain and ushing short passes to eat up clock.
Aberdeen got the ball with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, and they used quick passes from Dauwen to quickly get into Huron territory. Dauwen then connected with Waldo on a swing pass out of the backfield, and Waldo broke through multiple Tiger tackles to gain 32 yards down to the Huron 11-yard-line.
Huron was then able to keep the Golden Eagles out of the end zone, and Dallmann missed a field goal attempt wide right.
Huron then plugged the ball up the middle, eating up Aberdeens timeouts. Porisch then had a monster punt, as the ball was snapped from Hurons 21 and the punt was downed on Aberdeens 21.
Needing a quick score, Aberdeen launched the ball down the sideline and Porisch came through again with an interception at midfield on the first play. The Tigers then downed the ball twice to secure the 10-0 victory.
Huron totaled 207 yards through the air, with McNeil completing 21 of 35 passes for 207 yards along with a touchdown and an interception.
Hulst grabbed the most passes, with five catches, but Huron had six receivers make a catch, five of whom caught multiple passes. Porisch had the most receiving yards with 54 on four catches. He also led the defense with nine tackles and an interception, not to mention an impressive night punting the ball.
Aberdeen had more first downs and more total yards (227) in the game than the Tigers, but they couldnt push the ball into the end zone.
Dauwen was 12 of 28 passing for 126 yards and an interception. Brody Aesoph caught four of the passes.
Dallman carried the ball 11 times for 64 yards to lead the Aberdeen rushing attack that gained 101 yards, but only mustered nine yards on the ground in the second half.
Tigers coach Dru Strand was impressed with his teams effort, even when they made some mistakes.
They went out and fought for the full four quarters. Just a phenomenal job on both sides of the ball tonight, Strand raved. Even on mistakes, we didnt let it eat at us and we just kept fighting. Theyre doing a good job of peaking at the right time.
The Tigers will host Mitchell next Friday.
Score by quarters
Huron 0 7 3 0 10
Aberdeen Central 0 0 0 0 0
Scoring summary
1st quarter
No scoring
2nd quarter
H – 0:29 – Colton McNeil 1-yard TD pass to Jonathan Peterson. (Micah Larson PAT)
3rd quarter
H – 0:17 – 23-yard field goal by Larson.
4th quarter
No scoring
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