FREEPORT – One Huskie batted at the ball. Then a second Huskie. And Wes Gastel still caught it for his fourth touchdown reception.
“I got my hand on it,” Harlem safety Sterling Hecox said. “Tyler Cox got his hand on it. And he still came down with the ball.
“He’s a great receiver, but we played better than them as a team.”
Harlem and Freeport traded one big play after another, but only the Huskies could make the little plays in Friday’s 42-30 NIC-10 victory over the Pretzels.
In the end, Harlem (7-0) won because it held Freeport to a field goal after the Pretzels (4-3) had a first-and-goal from the 2 and to zero points after the Pretzels had a third-and-2 at the 11 and a second-and-3 from the 10.
“The closer they moved to the end zone, it was to our advantage,” Harlem coach Jim Morrow said. “They need space in order to execute.”
Freeport had a big-play runner in Tony Thompson (109 yards on 19 carries), Gastel (134 yards on 5 catches) and Kevin Flack, whose four TD passes gave him 21 on the season, one shy of the NIC-10 record. But the Pretzels’ shotgun spread offense doesn’t work well in short yardage.
And Harlem’s defense does.
“We might give up some big plays, but when it gets down into our red zone, we step up as a defense and play together,” Hecox said.
Linebacker Harrison Wentland had Harlem’s only sack to stop the Pretzels after they reached the 10 trailing 35-24 midway through the fourth quarter.
“It’s hard to get pressure on him, but the coaches made some adjustments and that’s how I got through,” Wentland said.
Gastel’s juggling 38-yard TD catch brought the Pretzels to within 35-30 with 4:52 left, but Harlem recovered the on-side kickoff. Keith Purifoy then secured the win by continuing to run wild. Freeport held Harlem to 47 yards rushing on 17 first-half carries, but Purifoy had 184 yards in the second half. He finished with 202 yards on only 14 carries.
Keenan Kellett completed 10 of 14 passes for 164 yards the first half to lead Harlem, but threw only once in the second half, a 5-yard TD to Casey Beck (six catches, 62 yards, 2 TDs).
Freeport trailed 14-0 after one quarter, when it gained only 22 yards. But the Pretzels gained 193 in the second quarter to cut Harlem’s lead to 21-17. Freeport took a 24-21 lead on Gastel’s third TD catch, after a Harlem fumble. But Kellett answered with that 5-yard pass to Beck and Purifoy added TD runs of 56 and 28 yards.
“We knew what we had to do,” Purifoy said. “Our linemen stepped it up big in the second half.”
- Matt Trowbridge, rrstar.com
