2008 Woodie Awards
Huskies show bite on defense in 17-7 victory
Travis Weldon
Issue date: 9/6/07 Section: Sports
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What do you get when you combine a stingy defense, timely offense and great field position all game?
As the SCSU football team found out, it is the formula to victory.
The SCSU football team (1-0) received a jump-start to the season with a 17-7 victory over Northern State (0-1) Aug. 30 in front of 3,807 at Husky Stadium.
The Huskies had 383 yards of total offense, compared to just 225 for Northern State.
The quarterback tandem of senior Mike Hammerseng and junior Jon Quesnel split playing time, much like they did all last season.
Hammerseng got the nod, but suffered a pinched nerve and handed the reins to Quesnel.
Both quarterbacks played well for the Huskies. Hammerseng went 12-for-17 for 177 yards and one interception, as Quesnel went seven-for-nine for 68 yards and a touchdown pass.
"I thought we did a great job moving the ball, but we have to finish drives," Quesnel said. "We have to put points up on the board."
Junior running back Kenneth Patrick carried the ball a majority of the game. He finished with 94 yards rushing and credited the offensive line.
"They do what they do best: block," Patrick said. "I just follow behind and keep my legs pumping. They worked hard out there."
He added three receptions for 24 yards, mostly on swing passes.
"I'm a check down guy," Patrick said. "Q (Quesnel) did a good job checking down to me on all three plays. I just feel that I needed to make somebody miss and get extra yards for my team."
The Huskies benefited from good field position all game. Five series started out in opponent's territory. A big key was Patrick's ability to make people miss on punt returns. He returned the ball 75 yards on four punts.
However, the Huskies found out finishing out drives proved to be a challenge against Northern State, and came away empty handed on three different trips to the red zone.
"Probably run the ball more in the red zone," SCSU head coach Randy Hedberg said about what he would do different in the red zone. "We didn't do very good down there. It's one area we worked hard at, but we will try to punch it in with the ball."
That tactic worked well with SCSU's first trip into the red zone. Patrick had a beautiful punt return that set SCSU just 35 yards away from the end zone.
After Hammerseng threw a 21-yard strike to sophomore Rocky Horn, SCSU pushed the running game with four straight run plays before freshman Jake Machacek pounded his way for the touchdown to put SCSU up 7-0.
Northern State would answer in the second quarter. Quarterback Andrew Wanner dropped back in the pocket on the SCSU 30-yard line, but shortly took off and scampered in for the touchdown to tie the game at seven.
Wanner formed that habit and it worked with the touchdown run and another 12-yard gain.
"We were dropping pretty deep in coverage," Hedberg said. "He was going back, and we were rushing four guys."
The Huskies' defense only allowed one eight-yard run from Wanner the rest of the game.
"Our second-level guys had to make plays," Hedberg said. "I think our secondary got off blocks a little better in the second half."
Quesnel started the second half for the Huskies, but went three-and-out on his first drive, the only three-and-out for the Huskies all game.
The ensuing punt would not be anything the punter Brian Cristan would imagine.
As the snap flew over his head, he ran back to pick it up near his own thirty-yard line. Instead of a pooch punt out of bounds or just dropping on the ball, he made a wide arc and rugby kicked the ball nearly 70 yards.
"It's either a shank off my foot or it's going to go far," Cristan said. "The only thing that was going through my head was that I needed to kick it as fast as I can."
The ball was downed at the three-yard line.
That was not the first time this has happened.
"The first time I kicked in high school the same thing happened to me. It went over the linebackers hand by this much," he said, holding his fingers apart about three inches. "It went 70 yards down the field."
Cristan was not prepared to say he should add that to his playbook.
"It's a little too much adrenaline going through me for it to happen all the time," Cristan said.
His second drive proved to be much better than his first. He went 4-for-5 throwing and capped the drive off with a three-yard fade to the corner of the end zone to senior Derek Sedin.
"We work on that all the time," Quesnel said. "Whenever I think we have a mismatch, we have a big guy at receiver and they have a small guy at corner, I'll take that nine times out of ten."
Freshman Justin Delgado added a 29-yard field goal with 5:20 left in the game to seal the game.
The Huskies are going to try to continue mixing this formula for victory as the season continues.
Husky Notes:
-Hedberg is 6-0 against Northern State and 7-2 in season openers with SCSU.
-Northern State wide-out Brian Jark was named preseason all-american, but the Husky defense was able to hold him to ten yards. gain.