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Warriors lose nail-biter and win blowout

Taye Buchanan breaks a big run against Presentation College on Sept. 26, 2020 in Forest City, IA. (Photo credit to Waldorf Athletics)

By Zach Throne

After the week one win for the Waldorf football team, it headed to Valley City, North Dakota to take on the Vikings of Valley City State. Then it came home for the home opener against Presentation College the following week.

The Warriors lost the battle 17-16 against the team picked to finish second in the preseason.

Despite the loss, the Warriors outgained the Vikings by 50 yards and won the turnover battle (1-0).

The demise for the Warriors was penalties, 11 of them for 119 yards.

“It’s hard to win a football game when you have that many penalties and that much yardage,” said junior safety MaCoy Yeakel. “We really need to clean those up because I feel like we beat ourselves.”

One of the high points of the game was junior kicker Slater Gifford nailing a career-long 47-yard field goal along with 19 and 25-yarders on the day.

The lone touchdown for the Warriors came from senior wide receiver Sam Huntley in the first quarter.

“That game falls on us as an offense,” said senior wide receiver Ryan Martinez. “The defense played a good game, and we have to back them up.”

The offense knew it had to be better for this Waldorf team to make a run and win the conference championship.

That’s exactly what the Waldorf offense did by scoring 42 of the 58 points against Presentation. The ending score was 58-7, and this game was the Warriors’ from the get-go.

The scoring started with a blocked punt touchdown by Tyler Dennis. Then a safety on a tackle by Wayne Parrish made the score 9-0.

After that, the offense finally started rolling, scoring three touchdowns to make it a 30-0 halftime score. The focus did not stop there, though, as Wayne Parrish returned an interception for a touchdown minutes into the second half.

The offense scored three more times in the game, including a touchdown by sophomore receiver Malik Adams when the second strings took the field for most of the fourth quarter.

“When we (the starters) can sit almost the entire fourth quarter, that’s a great day for us,” said sophomore guard Max Drebenstedt. “We played a great game today, and I’m glad we got so many guys into the game.”

The Warriors head back on the road this weekend to Madison, South Dakota to play Dakota State (1-1 overall and NSAA), whose game was postponed last week against Mayville State due to Mayville COVID-19 concerns.