Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Interception Runbacks Demolish Wolves
PEA RIDGE — Pea Ridge beat Lincoln, 62-14, Friday in front of a capacity crowd.
“Well, we played really well,” Blackhawk head coach Stephen Neal said, “though we didn’t start as fast as I would have liked.”
The Blackhawks put the Wolves back on their heels on the game’s first play after Jakota Sainsbury was nearly brought down. The slippery junior escaped the defender and threw a strike to Britton Caudill for a 31-yard gain to the Lincoln 34. Sainsbury hooked up with Hayden Holtgrewe for the second time on the drive, covering the 23 yards to the end zone. With 9:32 left in the first quarter, the Blackhawks assumed a 6-0 lead. Lincoln quarterback Harrison Swayne demonstrated why he was an All-Conference pick last fall, connecting on passes of 19 and 11 yards to Brent Crews and Braden Umberson to pick up 30 yards and a first down on the Blackhawk 30. The drive ran out of steam and the Wolves turned the ball over on downs.
Lincoln’s Umberson anticipated a third down pass, swiping it at the 30. Swayne hit three of four passes for 26 yards and first down on the Pea Ridge 1. On first down, Brett Scott stopped Swayne for a 1-yard loss. On second down, Jacob Torres broke through to sack Swayne for an 8-yard loss, and Holtgrewe tipped away a pass that would have gone for a score, forcing the Wolves into a fourth down play from the 15. Just as two Blackhawks converged, Swayne managed to get off a pass which was caught by Lloyd in the end zone for a touchdown. Their kick was good to give the visitors a surprising 7-6 lead with 2:02 left in the opening quarter.
Zaine Holley took the next snap from the Blackhawk 26 and shot through the Lincoln defense to sprint 74 yards to paydirt to regain the lead. Sansbury connected with Holtgrewe on the P.A.T. to push Pea Ridge ahead 14-7 with 1:24 to go. The Blackhawk defense was swarming and forced their guests to punt after three plays. The rush put on Lincoln helped lead to a shanked punt which traveled only 3 yards and gave Pea Ridge excellent field position at the Wolves’ 34. Holley scored his second touchdown on a 6-yard run with 10:34 left in the half. Nathan Spencer split the uprights to pad the lead to 21-7
The ensuing kickoff pinned Lincoln back to their own 10. They finally got a little success on the ground with Swayne gaining 6 yards twice on keepers, but the Blackhawks regained possession when Winn leaped high to outjump a Lincoln receiver for a pass, intercepting it on the Wolves 45. Winn finished off the short drive with a 3-yard run to paydirt. Spencer came on to successfully boot the P.A.T., lifting the lead to 28-7 with 5:35 left in the half.
Starting from their own 33, Lincoln tried again to establish their ground game but only got 2 yards on three carries. Swayne hit Brent Cruz for 15 yards to the Lincoln 49 but two plays later, Duncan Truesdell intercepted a third down pass and ran the ball back 19 yards to the Lincoln 36. Pea Ridge moved the ball and from the 17, Sainsbury lofted a pass to Caudill in the end zone for the score. The score left the Blackhawks ahead 34-7 with 23 seconds before intermission.
The second half was a bit unusual as the visitors ran 34 offensive plays to the Blackhawks eight plays. The Blackhawk defense ran back two of Lincolns passes for scores, keeping the ball with the visitors nearly a whole quarter. Though down, Lincoln wasn’t going to play defeated, taking the second half kickoff to drive 81 yards to score their second touchdown. Lincoln came out firing passes, with Swayne completing four in a row for 54 yards to the Blackhawk 16. A holding call pushed them back 10 to the 26, but a 7-yard run by Swayne and a penalty gave the Wolves a first down on the 14. Jacob Anderson bulled ahead to the 7 with Swayne finding Umberson open for a pass into the end zone. The kick was good to draw Lincoln a bit closer, trailing 34-14 with 8:23 left in the third period.
The Blackhawks wasted no time to get back on the scoreboard. Sainsbury went to his favorite target Holtgrewe, resulting in a 29-yard . scoring strike. Spencer converted the kick to set the score at 41-14 with 6:47 left in the third. Lincoln gained only a yard in their next possession, before punting the ball to the Blackhawk 41. After Pea Ridge absorbed their 13th penalty of the game, Winn exploded for 64 yards to activate the mercy rule on his second touchdown. Spencer was again accurate on the kick to balloon the lead to 48-14 with 5: 39 left in the third period.
After receiving the kickoff, Lincoln got something going, using a pass from Swayne to Lloyd for 8 yards followed by runs by Lloyd for 3 and 4 to move the ball to the 50-yard line. At this point, Swayne had his best play of the night, threading a pass to Umberson that nearly scored, moving the ball to the 5 before the Blackhawks’ Moises Davila saved the play with a leaping tackle. The first two Lincoln runs were stuffed at the line of scrimmage with a third down run resulting in a loss of two yards. Swayne threw into the end zone on fourth down but an alert Holtgrewe sniffed the play out and darted in front of the receiver to intercept the pass and return it 100 yards to the other end zone for the Blackhawks’ eighth touchdown. Spencer’s kick was good again and the Blackhawks led 55-14 with 2:06 left in the period.
With the Blackhawk reserves taking over, the Wolves began to make some offensive headway, using runs by Anderson and Christian Crittenden to get close to midfield early in the fourth quarter. Their drive went off the rails when the Blackhawks’ Romeo Torres correctly anticipated where a pass was going, sprinted ahead to pick if off in stride and race 50 yards to the end zone. Spencer converted his sixth P.A.T. to set the final score at 62-14.