The Raiders took on the Raiders in Raider football action on Oct. 19. The Raiders won, and the Raiders lost. It was the Hastings Raiders (4-4) against the Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders (1-7) squaring off in a Metro Maroon Conference game. Long time Raider fans know the angst between Hastings and CDH as well as St Thomas Academy. Each of those opponents has their own aspects to the rivalry.

Hastings won this Raider battle, 21-17, setting the stage for their first section playoff battle this week.

To avoid confusion going forward, Cretin-Derham Hall will only be referred to as Cretin or CDH. Any references to Raiders will be referencing the true Raiders of the Minnesota State High School League, the Hastings Raiders, since HHS was founded in 1866 and the CDH merger was in 1987.

Cretin received the ball to start the game, and on the first play of their opening drive, Austin Leflay burst through the line and added a tackle for loss to set the defensive tone for Hastings. Unfortunately, just a few plays later Cretin had the 7-0 lead. The key part of their five-play, 74-yard drive in 1:08 seconds was a trick play that went for 45 yards. Receiver Ryan Worford took the ball on a lateral from QB Miles Bollinger to the right and the Raider defense bit, thinking it was a run play. Cameron Vang was wide open down the right hash, but he was stopped a yard short of paydirt. Theto Hatley punched it in on the next play to give Cretin the early lead.

Hastings looked to bounce back quickly but went three-andout. Jack Sieben had a monster of a punt that put Cretin on their own 31, and the Raider defense took over forcing a punt from Cretin. A minute into the second quarter, facing third and seven, Millner took off toward the right corner of the endzone on a read option play where he leapt and stretched for the goal stripe, giving Hastings their first score of the game. The drive was 13 plays for 75 yards, and Sieben converted the PAT to tie the game.

Hastings versus Cretin is often one of those hard fought, back and forth games with multiple lead changes. This game did not disappoint fans of that style game. With it being the last game of the regular season, the teams were pulling out all the stops.

Cretin took their next possession at their 20 and with the help of Vang and a screen-type shovel pass that Hastings struggled to stop, they moved to the Raider 6-yard line. That was all the farther Cretin would get, and they converted a 23-yard field goal to go up 10-7 with 6:05 left in the half.

It began to look as though the cold was affecting both teams between a few poor passes that were dropped by the defensive backs, and a few dropped passes by the Raider receivers, Hastings struggled to do much the rest of the half. Cretin had equal issues connecting on passes heading into the half. Both teams ended up punting twice in six minutes. Cretin took a 10-7 lead to the locker room.

“It was a lot like we saw in film, so we were very prepared,” said Millner after the game, “I just don’t think we executed very well to start with in the first half. We found something in the second half, and we got rolling. We dominated from there.”

Hastings came out of the locker room and looked like a refreshed team, as Millner said. Cretin was doing all they could to avoid kicking the ball to Payton Burow, so Hastings started the first drive of the second half on their own 29. Five plays later, after setting Cretin up with three straight Burow runs, Millner connected with his favorite target this season, Johnny Bezdicek who was one-on-one with the lone Cretin defensive back. The setup with the runs forced Cretin to load up the box to stop Burow, and the play action sucked everyone in, allowing Bezdicek to turn on the afterburners for a 54-yard catch and run TD. Sieben’s kick was good, and Hastings had the 14-10 lead.

Cretin had an excellent return and started on their own 43. The Raider defense stepped up big. Bollinger dropped back to pass for Cretin and thought he had Vang streaking down the sidelines. The problem was, Bollinger missed DB Jack Cloutier running stride for stride with Vang. Cloutier was in the perfect position to make the interception. It was such an advantageous position that it looked as though he was the intended target.

Hastings took over on their own nine thanks to the interception but failed to move the ball out of their own half. Cretin took over on the Raider 43 and turned the ball over on downs at the Hastings 21. Hastings punted and Cretin scored on the next possession, a 7-yard pass, Bollinger to Leo Weber to go up 17-14 with 8:57 left in the game.

Raider fans began to panic with déjà vu setting in from flashbacks of their last game against Bloomington-Jefferson, a game the Raiders should have won.

The Raiders had decent starting field position, starting at their own 36. Much like the game started out with Leflay setting the tone for the Raider defense, the offensive coaches asked Leflay to set the tone on the offensive line too.

“Honestly I think it started with my hits,” explained Leflay. “I think a lot of people actually enjoy my hits. It just gets everybody fired up and they lead to big plays.”

The Raider offense made huge holes for Burow to run through, and it was clear, with a chilly night and a mostly ineffective passing game, the Raiders were going to rely on his legs to carry them to victory. Burow accepted the challenge and thanks to his slipperiness and the o-line’s blocks, he cracked off runs of 15, 27 and 15 yards that put the Raiders in prime position to score. With 4:39 left in the game, Burow got the ball one more time, and he carried it and a Cretin defender 7-yards into the end zone to give Hastings the 20-17 lead. The Sieben kick was good, and all Hastings had to do was hold on to the lead for four-anda-half minutes. Cretin threatened to score twice on subsequent drives, and Hastings was unable to generate enough yards to eat up the clock with their last offensive drive which made the last four minutes a rollercoaster for all Raider fans, Cretin included.

Throughout the game, the officials made some very questionable calls on both sides of the ball. So much so, many on the sidelines were wondering if the officials were new. Given the history of the need for officials, it is important to point out that normally, there is a ton of support for them in these stories. Not this time, this crew was having a very bad night as was proven by an exchange that happened on the Raider sideline.

Cretin was struggling to move the ball on their final drive and Hastings’ defense was fired up. Vang took a swing pass near the Raider sideline but was tackled in bounds, so the clock was to keep running and Cretin had no timeouts left. What happened next was too coincidental for most of the adults on the sideline. Vang remained down, forcing the officials to stop the clock. One of the officials thought he heard some not-sonice-words come from the sidelines and he went after one of the Raider coaches, aggressively.

That interaction caused a 15-yard penalty moving Cretin into Raider territory. Vang was fine, and play continued. Another questionable penalty on Hastings moved Cretin again and all of a sudden, they were at the Raider 25 with enough time to run two plays. Hastings stopped both endzone shots with the final block by Bezdicek as time expired, giving Hastings the win and the third seed in Section 3AAAAA.

“Our kids played really well,” said Head Coach Dana Strain after the game. “We fell behind, went ahead, fell behind, went ahead, and hung in there. We made stops when we needed too, and we were still behind at times. There’s a lot of pressure on you when you’re playing from behind and so for our kids to continue to battle and fight, to take the lead, then when he went back the other way to continue to fight and claw and find a way to get it back in our favor again, that shows a lot of resiliency on our kids part, a lot of fight. I’m very proud, very proud of them. They got it done.”

“Everyone was out here playing hard and there was a lot of pressure with the score being down and the time left, but we managed to get it done. We went back to the basics and did what we were taught from day one,” added Leflay.

“It starts up front with our hogs,” laughed Millner. “They put the defense on their heels. We just kept going and we didn’t stop. We dominated that last scoring drive, it was a huge, huge, huge turning point for us. Then our defense really showed up today, especially that big stop at the end and creating turnovers earlier in the game, so props to them.”

Millner finished the game 7-for-22 with 113 yards and one touchdown through the air. On the ground, he ran six times for 29 yards and one touchdown. Millner finished the season completing 69 of 170 passes (41%) for 1,044 yards with 9 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. On the ground he finished with 44 carries for 158 yards and five touchdowns.

Burow ran 22 times for 146 yards and one touchdown. For the year, Burow finished with 694 yards on 144 carries for 4.82-yard average scoring seven touchdowns.

Bezdicek had five receptions for 100 yards, with a long of 54 and one touchdown. Bezdicek finished the regular season with 617 yards receiving on 35 catches for a 17.63yard average. He scored six touchdowns.

The remaining two receptions went to Rico Cooper for 13 yards. Cooper finished with 19 catches for 175 yards and Cloutier finished with 11 catches for 159 yards and two touchdowns.

Defensively against Cretin, the Raiders saw 57 plays and allowed 323 yards while the offense executed 53 plays for 312 yards.

With that win, Hastings finishes the regular season at 4-4 with Two Rivers coming to town for a rematch of homecoming where Hastings dominated 42-6. The Warriors (1-7) have not been playing well this season, but Hastings cannot overlook them. Provided Hastings wins that matchup, the next game would be at Bloomington Kennedy on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. A win there and the Raiders will play on Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. for the Section Championship and a trip to state. Of course, that opponent is not determined yet, but with St. Thomas Academy on that side of the bracket and the Cadets being the prohibitive favorite in the section, many will be surprised if they are not in the section championship game.

Payton Burow followed up last week’s 135-yard performance with a 146-yard game on the ground for Hastings against Cretin-Derham Hall. Burow has 694 yards rushing on the season with 7 touchdowns, including one scored against CDH.Photo by Bruce Karnick

Austin Leflay set the tone for the Raiders defense right out of the gate with this first play tackle for loss. Leflay’s energy was so contagious that the coaching staff called offensive plays on one drive late in the third to run right behind him with each play being huge gains for the Raiders and firing everyone up. Photo by Bruce Karnick

Sophomore wide receiver and defensive back Jack Cloutier was stride-for-stride with Cretin’s receiver, Cameron Vang on this interception stopping Cretin’s first drive of the second half. Cloutier’s positioning makes him look like he was the intended target. Photo by Bruce Karnick