Hancock Holds Off Renville County West (Free)
Last Friday night in Buffalo I took in my first 9-man game of the season where Hancock (12-0) was able to beat Renville County West (11-1) by a score of 32-20 to get them to the state semifinals in Minneapolis. Here are my five takeaways of the game between the Owls and the Jaguars.
Timmerman Take Over
Tyler Timmerman, 2021 had five touchdowns for the Owls as he ran extremely hard last night and was a huge asset in the running game. He definitely plays much bigger than his 5’10 163 pound frame and during the game hurdled over a defender and truck stuck another Jaguar defender which were key to getting his team to victory. He told Northstar Football News after the game “that it’s pretty awesome” to get to play in Minneapolis at US Bank Stadium.
Renville County West Scored Early, But Not Late
This one was a 14-6 RCW lead at the half, but the Hancock Owls dominated the 2nd half by a score of 18-6. The Jaguars did get a nice 75 yard by Brandon Hoberg, 2021 in the 3rd quarter, but that would be the last of the scoring for the Jaguars on the night.
The Rice Brothers Are Fun to Watch on Defense
Renville County West really got great final games from Zac Rice, 2020 and Tyler Rice, 2020 in their final games as a part of the RCW Jaguars. They are hawks to the ball on a bulk of the defensive stops for the Jaguars and definitely left it all on the field in their final playoff game.
Respect to the Hog Mollies for the Owls
Most writers that credit running backs a good game, almost always forget the men upfront who opened up the holes for the running backs to hit their cuts and find the open field. Colton Crowell, 2020, Bryce Hacker, 2021 and Parker Schmidgall, 2020 used their almost 800 pounds of power upfront to open up the large holes for Tyler Timmerman to have an excellent game and get the Owls to US Bank Stadium next week.
Hoberg Is a Ballplayer
One of the top performances, in my opinion, was from QB Brandon Hoberg, 2021 for Renville County West. Although he got taken out late in the game for an injury, the Jaguars have to be excited to have a dual-threat QB leading their pack of Jags next year. He brings a different option at QB1 than Jack Howard does.
Final from Buffalo:
Hancock: 32
Renville County West: 20
Hancock will play Mountain Iron-Buhl (11-1) on Thursday morning at 11:30 AM at US Bank Stadium. Mountain Iron-Buhl is coming off a 42-6 rout of South Ridge last Friday night.
Renville County West (11-1) will need to rebuild after losing seven seniors to graduation for next year. Key positions like QB, 2 WRs, etc. will need to be looked at to see who will take the reigns for the Jaguars to get back to the state quarterfinals.