By Bruce Karnick

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The Raiders travelled to St. Thomas Academy on Friday night to take on the 3-0 Cadets. Coming into the match up, Hastings knew they were up against a very tough STA team. STA is always tough for the Raiders, tough in a similar way the Yankees are tough for the Twins, they are simply in the Raiders heads. Even in years we should beat the Cadets, we just do not, it is, well, for a lack of a better word, weird.

Hastings has had their opportunities to defeat STA over the years, but it always seems like the Raiders manifest the loss in some way, like they collectively expect to lose. They may not actively think it, but it seems as though it is their subconscious thought, and things just happen. Look back at the last home game, Hastings held the lead 21-7 into the half time. The Raiders were controlling the game. Five minutes into the third quarter, the Cadets had the 28-21 lead and never looked back.

One day, that will change for Hastings, one day, we will get that win, sadly, Friday was not the day. STA won the coin toss and deferred to the second half. Hastings began the game on their 35 went three and out. John Chorlton kicked a booming punt to bury STA at their 10. The Cadets marched 90 yards in five plays to score first on a 14yard run by Love Adebayo.

Hastings second drive started on their 25 and ended with Chorlton drilling a second beautiful punt putting STA on their 34. With the score 7-0 in favor of the Cadets, Hastings looked poised to make up for the previous defensive series when Stephen Reifenberger leapt at the Raider 46 to intercept an STA pass. Reif returned the interception to the Cadet 41, and Hastings had their first break of the game.

Unfortunately, the Cadet defense was just as cold blooded as the STA offense and they came after the Raiders, forcing a third punt of the game. Chorlton and his punt team pinned the Cadets at their 13. This time, STA went 87 yards in five plays for the score and now led 140.

Hastings had their fourth straight possession end with a Chorlton punt, and STA answered each punt with a touchdown. By the time halftime hit, St. Thomas was up 28-0 and had out gained the Raiders by nearly 300 yards.

After the half, STA came out aggressive and went 75 yards again in five plays for their fifth touchdown. On the ensuing possession, Hastings was forced to punt, and the Cadets answered that with their final touchdown of the night. Hastings did get on the board with a six-yard pass from Senior QB Axel Arnold to Rico Cooper with 28 seconds left in the third quarter. At that point, both teams opted to play many of the second team guys which meant Backup QB Danny Millner got some live action. Millner performed well completing 2-for-4 passes for 54 yards. The longest pass for Millner went to Gavin Odman for 48 yards. The consensus of the media members is Odman scored on that play, but those opinions matter not. The officials say he fumbled outside the goal line, and it was recovered by STA in the endzone for a touchback.

By the time the game was over, STA had scored on six of their first seven drives and only missed one extra point. The Cadets had a total of 10 offensive possessions. Two of the final three drives ended from turnovers on downs and the third ended because the game did.

Hastings also had 10 possessions, six ended with punts by Chorlton, two fumbles were lost, halftime ended one and there was one touchdown. The final stat line was difficult to look at if you were a Raider fan. STA had 486 total yards to Hastings 125. The Cadets, while it did not seem as such, were very balanced on offense. 262 yards on the ground and 224 in the air. Hastings had 18 rushing and 107 passing yards.

The Raiders fought hard against a very talented St. Thomas Academy team. The Cadets have at least three offensive players are simply beasts. Explosively quick and tough to take down. As a team, they averaged 6.23 yards per carry, but their top three rushers accounted for 218 of those yards on 29 carries, good for a 7.51 yards per carry. Their passing attack averaged 22.4 yards per reception. That makes for a long night for the Raiders defense.

The sideline was certainly frustrated, but even with the loss, they were not pointing fingers, they were working together to try to figure out an answer. The problem is, the answer may likely be ‘get bigger, faster, and stronger’ to be able to beat this year’s STA team, the largest factor being faster. The Cadets were lightning quick, and Hastings just didn’t have an answer for that aspect as hard as they tried. Sadly, that is just how things go sometimes We caught up with head coach Dana Strain Monday to talk about the game and what he was proud of given the outcome. “Well, number one, our kid’s preparation. You know, sometimes on game night, things don’t go as you plan or as you hope they would go, it doesn’t detract from what our kids have done up to this point. In particular, in terms of their preparations. So, you know, we didn’t have anything heading into that game where we were overconfident, we didn’t have any lack of effort on our kid’s part. And so, you know, that’s what we’ll continue to. To use going forward is the process that got us you know, where we’re at, and, and, you know, so that’s number one the kids have been great to work with, and we’ll be excited to get back on the field with them. And that’s the number one thing you want to do after a loss is just get back with your kids and that’s where you’re at when you most enjoy what you do.”

Coach Strain was proud of the effort from his special teams. “We did perform pretty well in special teams, and that hasn’t been that way every game either. We weren’t great at special teams against Apple Valley. We rebounded well, against Simley and played well against STA in special teams. Our kickoff return has been very good. And it was it was very fun. It’s been very good. And, and we’ve done a nice job in punt coverage for the most part. And then our kickoff coverage, I think, you know, for every five that we cover, we have maybe one that’s not great for that up, but for the most part, we’ve been pretty good there. And I think special teams going forward, it’s that’s a big part of it for us.”

The mental aspect of football that can be tough on kids is playing once a week. That means they have time to dwell on the loss until their next game. Coach Strain couldn’t wait to get on the practice field and get the team to put the STA loss behind them. Learn from it and move on.

Regarding the younger guys getting some playing time at the end of the game, Coach Strain recognized the double-edged sword he was standing on. “It’s always good to get to that point where you can get [the younger players] playing time for one. You know they work as hard as anybody and so you want to create opportunities for them, and we don’t always have the means of getting them a lot of playing time with our roster size so it’s just always good to see to get them that experience and for us to be able to see them in that environment you know it’s beneficial. You hate to get to it the way we got to it but anytime those kids get opportunity that’s fun too.”

Up next is Homecoming on Friday night against South St. Paul at 7:00 p.m.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I have a personal request for this one folks, let’s pack the stands. There will be hundreds of students in the student section, lets show all of these kids how thankful we are that they go out every day and practice hard and represent Hastings as well as they do. Being up close and personal with so many of these athletes, they really are amazing young adults. Get out to another game and bring some friends. Go to something in the next week you have never gone too, Tennis, Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming or Cross Country. Don the blue and gold and go cheer for all of our amazing kids, I promise, you won’t regret it. Be at Todd Field by 6:00 to get in line because at Halftime, I want to take an epic picture of a full stadium for all to see. We’ll share it on our social media for you to have a copy of too! GO RAIDERS!

The students are traveling well to support their Raiders, packing half the stands at St. Thomas Academy Friday night. The students stayed actively involved in cheering and lifting their friends even in the face of certain defeat later in the game. Photo by Bruce Karnick