Oakes, ND (NewsDakota.com) – The Oakes Tornadoes took care of business on Friday October 9th as they beat the Valley City Hi-Liners by a final score of 43-8.
The game started with the Hi-Liners quickly learning the run game was going to be tough to come by as they couldn’t get anything moving before on a 3rd and long Hudson Kriewald would connect with Teagan Klevgaard. Klevgaard would juke and jive his way all the way down to the Oakes 1 yard line before being stopped. The Tornadoes defense then hardened and prevented the Hi-Liners from finding pay dirt on 4 straight plays. Oakes and Valley City would both have to punt on their following drives. Oakes would get the ball in good field postion and begin marching down into the redzone and all the way the the Valley City 1 yard line themselves. Matvei Dimitrov would then punch it in to make it 6-0 with 2:02 left in the first.
The Hi-Liners would continue to find struggles on the ground and would be forced to the air to start the 2nd quarter. Kriewald would find Andrew Sykora in the middle of the field but the ball would go off and through his hands into the awaiting arms of Oakes’ Adam Bymers for an interception to give Oakes prime field position with 11:12 left in the 2nd. The Tornadoes would go down the field and then the Beau Thorpe-Brody Moore connection would come alive again as Thorpe would find Moore in the endzone from 21 yards out to make it 14-0 with 8:58 left. On the ensuing kick off Tye Cordie would return the ball into Oakes territory. Kriewald would then find a weakness in the Oakes secondary and began making short passing plays and the drive would result in a Hi-Liner 5 yard touchdown pass to Brady Broten to make it 14-8 with 6:35 left. Oakes would respond less then a minute later with a quick drive being capped off by a 31 yard touchdown run by Matthias Dahlstrom to make it 21-8 with 5:39 left. Oakes would also lose their quarterback late in the quarter as Beau Thorpe would go down on a drive as he would run to the far boundary and go out of bounds near the 20. His momentum took him too the barrier dividing the field from the fands, a line of rope tied chest high, and be clotheslined. He would go down and get up under his own power but Coach Greg Dobitz would decide to air on the side of caution and remove him for the game. Their would also be one more interception as Brody Moore would intercept Kriewald with :11 left on the half. Back up rookie quarterback Owen Iverson and Moore would almost connect on a long ball that would have brought them to the 5 yard line but the ball was just too long for Moore. The half would end 21-8.
Oakes would get started immediatley in the next half with Iverson connecting throughout the half with tight end Nathan Schmitz and giving Dahlstrom a chance to stretch his legs as Dahlstrom would run in from 8 yards out with 10:27 left on the quarter to make it 29-8. Kriewald would again be intercepted by Moore on the ensuing drive and Oakes would again march down the field for another touchdown ran in from 7 yards out by Dahlstrom to make it 35-8 with 3:46 left. Kriewald would be picked off again in the next drive with Schmitz finding his first interception on the year with 3:14 left. Oakes would begin to march down the field but the quarter break would come before another score.
The 4th quarter began with another 7 yard touchdown run from Dahlstrom, his 4th touchdown of the day, to make it 43-8 with 10:00 to go resulting in running clock for the rest of the game. The Hi-Liners would attempt to march down the field and get into Oakes territory but their long drive would end with Bymers getting his 2nd interception of the day down near the Oakes 10 with 2:25 left allowing for Oakes’ 43-8 victory.
The Bank North Player of the Game was Nathan Schmitz.
The Hi-Liners fall to 1-5 in the region and their season will come to an end on October 16th when they take on the Northern Cass Jaguars at home at 7:00 pm. You can catch all the action on the Voice of the Valley KOVC and on the KOVC Live YouTube page.
The Tornadoes are now 5-1 in the Region and are confirmed to have at least a 3-seed going into the postseason. There is an outside chance at a home playoff game but it would require some tie breakers to go their way and they would have to beat EEK. They play EEK at Cummings Field in Oakes on October 16th with coverage on KDDR The Tornado beginning at 6:00 pm with the Full 9 Yards and the Edward Jones Pregame Show beginning at 6:30 pm. Kick off is at 7:00 pm.
