Raiders fall short of victory at Riverside Friday
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Austin Cole finds his way through a gap last Friday night against Riverside
It was a tale of two-halves last Friday night as the Raiders traveled just under two hours to Oakland to face the Riverside Bulldogs.
Mount Ayr came in as the underdog against a Riverside team that had just defeated St. Albert 49-36 and put up over 600 yards of total offense, including 220 passing yards from senior quarterback Austin Kremkoski.
Mount Ayr won the toss, but deferred to the second-half, giving Riverside the opportunity to strike first. Just under four minutes into the game and Kremkoski and company had found the endzone on a pass to Braydon Hill, but the extra point kick was low and blocked, putting the Bulldogs ahead 6-0, early.
The Raider offense couldn’t get anything going throughout the first half, while the defense couldn’t find an answer for the Riverside passing attack.
Riverside began to score and before long, the board showed the Bulldogs ahead 29-0.
Mount Ayr scored with 33 seconds left in the half to end the shutout. The two-point try was no good.
The Raiders would go into halftime trailing Riverside 29-6.
The second-half would be a different story altogether after the Raiders returned to the field and would receive the kick to start the half.
Two minutes in and the Raiders had scored, this time on a huge Austin Cole run. The two-point conversion would see Jaixen Frost connect with Jaydon Knight to make it a 29-14 contest.
The Raider defense was breaking through the tough Riverside front and Kremkoski was hit as he threw which was picked off by Cole who was starting to shine on both offense and defense in this second-half.
With the clock running out in the third, Mount Ayr scored with 37 seconds left in the quarter to make it 29-20 with one quarter left to play.
The Raiders would score again with only 1:18 left on the clock to make it a three-point game, however, Mount Ayr would run out of time and fall to the Bulldogs 29-26, not allowing a Riverside score in the last 24 minutes of the contest.
The adjustments at halftime seemed to work for the Raiders as the post-game speech from coach Victor praised them for the second-half display.
“We told them to do their job,” said coach Victor. “That was our adjustment. They weren’t ready to play and that’s on us as coaches. It’s our job as coaches to make sure they are ready to play and they weren’t so we are going to take 100% responsibility and it shouldn’t take a halftime butt-chewing to get them ready, but sometimes that happens.”
Coach Victor commended Riverside, a top 10 team in Iowa, for jumping on the Raiders early.
“Props to Riverside. They jumped on us when we weren’t ready and then when we come out and play some football we are a pretty tough football team and Riverside is a good football team. They are supposed to be a top-10 team in the state of Iowa and the fact we were able to score 26 on them and not give up any in the second-half says a lot about our kids heart and that’s what I’m really proud of.”
Stats
1 2 3 4 F
MA 0 6 14 6 26
RB 14 15 0 0 29
Scoring
1st Quarter
8:33 – RB – Kremkoski to Moore 4-yd pass. PAT No Good.
1:31 – RB – Kremkoski to Hensley 85-yd pass. 2pt PAT good.
2nd Quarter
6:51 – RB – Kremkoski to Moore 21-yd TD pass. 2pt PAT good.
2:42 – RB – Kremkoski to Jeppesen 75-yd Pass. PAT good.
0:46 – MA – Frost 40-yd run. PAT no good.
3rd Quarter
9:59 – MA – 38-yd run. 2PT PAT good.
0:37 – Frost to Knight 4-yd pass. PAT no good.
4th Quarter
1:18 – MA – Frost 5-yd run. PAT No good.
Team Statistics
1st Downs MA RB
Total 16 18
Rushing 9 11
Passing 7 5
Penalty 0 2
Rushing
Attempts 35 39
Gained 247 241
Lost 3 19
Net 244 222
Passing
Completions 9 9
Attempts 21 19
Percentage 43 47
Intercepted 0 1
Net 108 239
Total Offense 343 279
Punts 3 2
Average 43.3 31.5
Return Yards
Punt Return 0 0
Kickoff 24 39
Int. Returns 9 0
Fumble Ret. 0 0
Fumbles 0 1
Fumbles lost 0 0
Penalties 7 5
Yards lost 55 40
Individual Statistics
Passing
Comp Att Yds
Frost 9 21 108
Rushing
Att. Gain Avg
Frost 13 137 10.5
Shay 15 42 2.8
Cole 7 65 9.3
Receiving
Rec Yds Avg
Case 1 5 5
Stark 1 25 25
Shay 2 25 12.5
Knight 4 44 11
Cole 1 9 9
Tackles
S A
Frost 6 2
Case 0 1
Stark 1 0
Pierson 2 2
Martin 1 0
Shay 5 4
Grose 2 2
White 3 1
Murphy 0 1
Knight 1 1
Cole 0 4
Larson 2 1
Yoder 2 3
M.Larson 3 4
Swietlik 0 1
Strange 1 1
Kick-Offs
Kicks Yds
Cole 5 159
Punts
Kicks Yds
Pierson 3 130
Kick Return
Returns Yds
Case 1 8
Grose 2 6
White 2 10
Blocked Kicks
Blocked Yds
Knight 1 0
Strange 1 0
Interceptions
INTs Yds
Cole 1 9
