The Crookston Pirate Football team had a feeling that Hawley’s Jacob Vetter (6’5 200lb Sr) would play his first football game since he blew out his knee in the Section 8AA Football championship game last year in a loss to Barnesville. Vetter didn’t play in the first quarter, but he made his presence know in the second quarter and second half to lead the Hawley Nuggets to a 34-14 victory over the Pirates in a Section 8AA match-up played in Crookston.
Crookston’s Jaden Lubarski had a nice kick return for about 30 yards and the Pirates started their first drive at the Hawley 46-yard line. On the third play of the drive, Leyton Salentine completed an 11-yard pass to Nick Garmen for a first down that kept the drive going. Four plays later, Crookston had the ball on the Hawley 19-yard line, but they couldn’t convert a fourth down play and turned the ball over on downs. Hawley didn’t move the ball much and had to punt and Crookston had the ball at mid-field for their second drive. Crookston had to punt, and Hawley started with the ball at their own 37-yard line. The Nuggets marched the ball down the field and Chase Libak found a wide-open Noah Glad for a 30-yard touchdown and after a Mason Klevgaard kick, Hawley led 7-0, eight seconds into the second quarter. Crookston had a chance to answer on their second drive of the quarter when they had another long drive and after starting at their own 32-yard line they marched the ball down the field. A 30-yard Salentine run sparked the drive and Lukas Meier was getting good chunks of yardage on his runs and the Pirates had the ball inside the 15-yard line, but a fourth down play failed to get the first down and it was another turnover on downs and Hawley took a 7-0 lead into halftime. “Our effort and discipline was horrible in the first half,” said Hawley Coach Peder Naatz. “We have to wake them up, I don’t know. It is something we have to fix, it is frustrating.” Vetter came into the game in the second quarter and was 4 of 11 passing for 57 yards. “I thought it was a great first half for us. The kids played extremely well in the first half. We have to learn how to finish our drives and did a good job of getting down the field, but we didn’t finish.”
The offense for both teams picked up in the second half. Hawley started the half with the ball and after a Pirate squib kick, the Nuggets had the ball at their own 40-yard line. Hawley ran two plays and had a penalty to set up a third down and 15 play. Chase Libak completed a 35-yard pass to Derian Gerdes for a first down to keep the drive alive. A handful of plays later and the over four-minute drive was capped with a Gerdes one-yard run for a touchdown and after the Klevgaard kick, Hawley led 14-0. Crookston had to punt on their next drive, but the got the ball back two plays later when Salentine intercepted a pass. The defensive stop gave Crookston some momentum and they started the drive at their own 39-yard line. On the fourth play of the drive, Salentine ran 16 yards for a first down and three plays later he scored on a 12-yard run and after the extra point kick was no good, Hawley’s lead was 14-6 with 25 seconds left in the quarter. “It was a really nice run and Leyton reads it so well,” said Coach Butt. “I thought our big guys up front starting moving people and he took advantage of it and go to the outside.” Two plays later, Jacob Vetter responded in a big way by finding Glad for an 88-yard touchdown pass and after the extra point kick, Hawley led 21-6. A couple plays later, Crookston responded with a Salentine 73-yard run that he bounced to the outside and ran down the sideline after breaking a tackle and cut back to the middle of the field to score. Salentine completed a two-point conversion pass to Lukas Meier and Crookston trailed 21-14 with 10:40 left in the game. “He made people miss and did a nice job,” said Coach Butt. “Leyton ran hard and broke a couple tackles and showed he is a pretty special player for us.”
Hawley responded with another Vetter touchdown pass, a 24 yarder to Glad and a little over four minutes later Gunnar Lawson finished off the scoring with a 19-yard touchdown run and Hawley won 34-14. Hawley had 268 yards passing with 225 yards coming from Jacob Vetter. “To be honest, we sold out on the run tonight. We were going to play man on the edges and we thought we could run with them. They have some good athletes,” said Coach Butt. “We didn’t have anybody that could stop Noah Glad. He is a good athlete and did a really nice job tonight.”
Crookston drops to 1-2 on the year and will travel to #8 ranked Breckenridge on Friday. Hawley improves to 2-1 on the year.
Lukas Meier looks to get to the outside on a run
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | FINAL | |
| Hawley | 0 | 7 | 7 | 20 | 34 |
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 0 | 6 | 8 | 14 |
Brady Butt takes down a Hawley Nugget running back
1st Quarter
No Scoring
2nd Quarter
11:52 – Hawley – Chase Libak 30 yard pass to Noah Glad from (Mason Klevgaard kick)
3rd Quarter
7:52 – Hawley – Derian Gerdes 1 yard run (Mason Klevgaard kick)
0:25 – Crookston – Leyton Salentine 12 yard run (kick failed)
4th Quarter
11:42 – Hawley – Jacob Vetter 88 yard pass to Noah Glad (Mason Klevgaard kick)
10:40 – Crookston – Leyton Salentine 73 yard run (Leyton Salentine pass to Lukas Meier)
8:27 – Hawley – Jacob Vetter 24 yard pass to Noah Glad (Mason Klevgaard kick)
3:55 – Hawley – Gunnar Lawson 19 yard run (kick blocked)
Leyton Salentine stiff arms a Hawley defender
| CROOKSTON | Hawley | |
| First Downs | 10 | 14 |
| Rushing-Yards | 41-241 | 31-158 |
| Passing | 3-9-0 | 9-19-1 |
| Passing Yards | 28 | 268 |
| Total Yards | 269 | 426 |
| Fumbles-Lost | 0 | 1-0 |
| Penalties-Yards | 4-30 | 6-40 |
| Punts-Yards Ave. | 5-24.6 | 3-30.3 |
Brady Wisk pushes a Nugget out of bounds as Cade DeLeon looks on
Rushing
| Crookston | Hawley |
| Leyton Salentine 14-167 | Derian Gerdes 15-42 |
| Lukas Meier 12-56 | Chase Libak 8-48 |
| Joe Doda 12-15 | Gunnar Lawson 5-46 |
| Blake Fee 2-2 | Ben Burkel 2-21 |
| Brooks Butt 1-1 | Justin Koski 1-1 |
Passing
| Leyton Salentine 3-9-0 28 yards | Jacob Vetter 7-16-1 225 yards |
| Chase Libak 2-3-0 43 yards |
Receiving
| Ty Hamre 1-13 | Noah Glad 5-166 |
| Nick Garmen 1-11 | Chase Libak 3-67 |
| Walker Winjum 1-4 | Derian Gerdes 1-35 |
