DEADWOOD - Saturday morning's opening game at the 16th annual Prospector Bowl at Ferguson Field may not have been a thing of beauty, but it was enough to get the Newell Irrigators off to their best start in head coach Steve Schoenfish's eight years at the school.
"That was an ugly football game," Schoenfish said of his Irrigators' 12-3 win over the Wall Eagles in a 9-man high school football game.
The wet and windy weather made it tough on both teams as both squads struggled with bad snaps and mishandled balls throughout the game. But Schoenfish didn't use it as an excuse.
"The weather didn't have anything to do with the personal fouls or bad snaps," Schoenfish said. "The weather wasn't the cause of anything."
Things started well for the Irrigators as they moved down the field quickly on their opening possession, capping the drive with a 31-yard touchdown pass from Tyler Mutchler to Brian Fox. Unfortunately for the 'Gators things kind of ground to a halt offensively after that.
Wall's Ryan Burkinshaw -who played an admirable all-around game - kicked a 27-yard field goal to close the gap to 6-3 heading into the half. That was about as close as the Irrigators would let the Eagles get to the end zone for the rest of the day.
"Our defense has done that for us all year so far," Schoenfish said. "They've kept us in games, I think they've only given up nine points so far, so we're kind of coming to expect that from them."
The Irrigator defense intercepted the Eagles three times, recovered a fumble and sent starting quarterback Zeb Lytle to the bench late in the game with an apparent arm injury.
Newell opened the second half by capitalizing on a special teams miscue. Wall was forced into a punting situation from their own 31-yard line when the snap sailed over punter Tyrel Eisenbraun's head. Eisenbraun retrieved the ball and covered it at the 10-yard line, but the damage was done. After holding the Irrigator offense out of the end zone when it started a drive on the Eagles' 2-yard line in the first half, the Wall defense couldn't pull off another short-field miracle as Newell's Tyler Adams punched the ball into the end zone on a 2-yard run to make it a 12-3 game.
The Eagles got three more possessions in the fourth quarter to try to make a game of it, but their three possessions in the final quarter ended with an interception, a turnover on downs and a fumble as Newell's defense salted away the win.
"Brett Burke, our outside linebacker, played an excellent game today," Schoenfish said. "If there's something going on out on the field that I don't see, he usually does. He's our coach on the field out there."
Burke picked up an interception early in the fourth quarter and Dusty Braun made a huge defensive play for the Irrigators to close the game out. Wall drove the ball to the Newell 11-yard line with just under three minutes to play, but Braun sacked Wall back-up quarterback Darick Eisenbraun, forced a fumble and recovered the ball to end any chance the Eagles may have had to get back in the game.
Wall drops to 0-2 and will play at Kadoka on Friday.
Newell improved to 3-0 on the year and will play at Philip on Sept. 21 after an open week.
