Nighthawks' Fourth Quarter Rally Not Enough in Season Opener Against Roosevelt

Last Saturday, the Northfield Nighthawks kicked off their football season at Evie Dennis in a game against the Roosevelt Rough Riders. They lost by a final score of 28-20, however the game felt much more lopsided than that. The Nighthawks scored two touchdowns in the last two minutes, when the game was out of reach, including a long touchdown pass with just four seconds remaining to cut the deficit to eight.

The story of the first three quarter for the nighthawks, in which they were outscored 28-0, was big plays and special teams miscues. It started on the opening kickoff, which was taken back 99 yards for a touchdown by Rough Riders' return man Milo Pascual. The Nighthawks would then go on to muff a punt and drop two snaps on their own punts. Fortunately, two of these fumbles ended up being harmless. However, one of the botched snaps resulted in a turnover on downs, giving Roosevelt the ball on the Nighthawks' eight yard-line, eventually resulting in the touchdown. In addition to these plays, the Nighthawks' defense gave up two 50+ yard runs, one of which for a touchdown. In total, the Rough Riders amassed 236 yards on the ground on over 7.5 yards per carry, mostly thanks to those two bursts. Senior Luc Vigil had 16 carries for 192 yards and a pair of touchdowns. On the other hand, Northfield only allowed 11 passing yards on five attempts. They also forced one fumble and got one interception. For the majority of the game, Northfield's defense was very good, however, two explosive runs plus two costly special teams errors put the team in too big of a hole to climb out of.

Northfield's offense had a dominant fourth quarter. However, they could not get much going until then. They had multiple drives where they got to the edge of field goal range, but always stalled out just short. The biggest factor in the sudden turn around was the passing game. Early in the game, the run game was working fine but the Nighthawks' could not pass the ball. Roosevelt's defense didn't have to worry about Northfield throwing the ball so they put their focus into stopping the run and it worked. However, in the last twelve minutes of the game, quarterback Trace Debenedictis started airing the ball out and threw for two touchdowns, finally sparking some offense. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.

Also in the fourth quarter, two sophomores left the game due to injury. Running back Xavier Ward came off the field limping after tripping over a referee and Jay Anthony Yancey came up grabbing his back after going up for a jump ball in the end zone. Both these players had solid games prior to the injuries and seemed to be two of the offense's best weapons in the game.

Overall, despite how the game felt, there were plenty of positives for the Nighthawks to look forward to for the rest of this season, especially during the final quarter. The defense limited Roosevelt's pass game and was fine against the run minus two plays. On top of that, the offense showed some life with three touchdowns in the last ten minutes. If this team can limit the costly special teams errors and big plays, they should be in for a good year.