Strain talks team approach to blocking

They were putting guys on the ground. Our linemen played extremely well. I thought we won up front and that's what we had to do. Credit to not only our linemen but all of our guys, our receivers for blocking hard are our H’s and tight ends for blocking as well as they did and then our backs running as physically as they did.”

Head Coach Dana Strain

On Oct. 12, the boys travel to St. Thomas Academy, also at 7:00 p.m. Robbinsdale Cooper comes to Todd Field on Oct 18 for senior night for another 7:00 p.m. tilt.

It is not very often that this kind of craziness happens, but the Raider football game against the Cretin Derham Hall Raiders (CDH) on Friday night for Homecoming was the kind that players and fans will never forget. The game started at 7:00 p.m. with the introductions of the Homecoming Royalty, including Queen Lauren Jenkins and King Caden Miller. Then there was a halftime performance by the Raider Marching Band and the game ended at 11:56 p.m. in overtime. How did the game last nearly five full hours? Let’s start from the top.

CDH took the first possession at their own 29-yard line and the drive ended with a punt to the Raiders 22. Hastings punted the ball back and CDH started their second possession at their own 47. The Raiders defense did an outstanding job most of the night stifling Cretin’s offense and forced a second punt in as many drives. The Raiders took the ball on their own 21 and marched down the field with a 10 play, 79-yard drive that was capped off by a 30-yard pass from Lukas Foss to Cade Kimmes. The extra point was good from the leg of Jack Sieben and Hastings was up 7-0.

Cretin answered the Raiders touchdown with one of their own, a 13 play, 63-yard drive that took nearly eight minutes off the clock. After the Cretin touchdown, Hastings had their next possession stall, and Cretin took over on their own 39. Creed Peterson grabbed another interception of the season to give the Raiders the ball on their own 44. That set up a 56-yard touchdown drive capped off by a 2-yard run by Cole Zeien for his first score of the night. Hastings was heading to the locker room at halftime leading 14-7.

The halftime entertainment kicked off with an introduction to the Homecoming royalty, their parents and the Homecoming King and Queen, Caden Miller and Lauren Jenkins. The Raider Marching Band performed their show after the Homecoming festivities and shortly after that the second half of the game began, which is when things started to get crazy.

CDH kicked off to start the half and with the touchback, the ball was placed at the 20-yard line. This is where the first delay came into play.

MSHSL rules state that if an official sees lightning, the competition must be put on hold for 30 minutes. Every time lightning is witnessed, that 30-minute timer restarts. The construction of the bleachers and locker rooms at Todd Field is a huge problem when it comes to lightning. The bleachers are all metal and that metal anchors into the stone that is below where the locker rooms are. If the bleachers were to be struck by lightning, there is a very good chance that a bolt of electricity could carry into the locker rooms below and anyone in there could be injured. That means, all players must exit the complex and board the buses and all fans must also return to their vehicles. The entire stadium is cleared for safety except for key personnel needed to make the decisions.

Coaches gathered to check out radar apps on their phones, Athletic Director Trent Hanson was also in the group discussing options and the lightning was flashing continually around Hastings. All of the radar apps indicated that the storm was going to stay north of Hastings by several miles and the heaviest of both rain and lightning were hitting the Twin Cities and moving northeast. Our neighbors to the north in Cottage Grove did not fare as well as Hastings did, they got poured on which forced the resumption of their game to Saturday morning.

The discussion was had around how long do they hold on before they suspend and pick another day? Hanson was trying to avoid that at all costs because of a number of reasons. The availability of officials was the biggest concern followed by field availability. Todd Field had three major events scheduled for Saturday, boys soccer at 11:00 a.m., girls soccer at 1:00 p.m. and Marching Band’s field show at 6:00 p.m. so playing at Todd Field on Saturday was not an option. There was the option of playing at the high school, but that field was not set up properly for the fans, same with playing at Cretin. The decision makers felt the best option was to wait it out and after looking at the radar, they were shooting for a 10:30-10:45 p.m. restart time, but what do they do with the players for a more than hour long break? They bused them back to the high school instead of leaving them in the cramped confines of the bus. Media helped share the plan on social media.

The teams returned to Todd Field around 10:15 p.m. and they were warming up at 10:30, this is also when the student section rushed through the entrance and claimed their spots on the bleachers. Surprisingly, there were also a good number of parents on hand too, largely because of the information getting out so quickly to fans, and the Raiders fed off that support.

“I've been doing this a long time and I've only had one that was postponed until the next day. This is the first time we've waited this long and got it in. Credit to our crowd for sticking around as much as they did, but particularly our student section, they showed up huge. As soon as they saw our buses come, they all filtered in so that was pretty cool. Yeah, this was a strange one I told the kids, they will remember this for a long time for a lot of reasons,” said Head Coach Dana Strain.

There was 11:45 left in the third quarter and Hastings had the ball at their own 20. That lasted all of 22 seconds. Foss handed the ball off to Zeien and he was off to the races, an 80-yard sprint for the touchdown, a touchdown that those left at Todd Field thought was the dagger with the Raiders leading 21-7.

Cretin fought back and stopped the next Raider possession. They turned around and scored a touchdown to make it 21-13 and the Raider defense came up huge again, this time on special teams. Cretin lined up to kick the extra point and both Sawyer Tjomsland and Creed Peterson quickly made their way to the backfield where Peterson blocked the kick.

Hastings had a chance to ice the game, but a Foss pass was picked off by former Raider Luke Chorlton. CDH capitalized on the turnover and scored with just 32 seconds remaining in the game. They completed a two-point conversion, and the game was tied at 21.

The kickoff left Hastings at their 28-yard line with less than 30 seconds left in regulation. Initially, they did a good job of quickly moving the ball and utilizing their timeouts, but the drive stalled around mid-field. With five seconds left on the clock, the Raiders were faced with a fourth down. Rather than risk a sack with a fumble, they opted to have Zeyen punt the ball high to run out the clock and the plan worked perfectly.

The end of regulation brought another coin toss, which Hastings won, and the coolest moment of the night, the mass transition of the student section. When the officials moved to place the ball at the scoreboard end of the field, the entire student section stood up and moved as one massive group to be as close to the action as possible.

MSHSL overtime rules have all of the action take place on one end of the field. Each team has one set of downs to score from the 10-yard line. Once both teams have had a possession, if the score remains tied, it becomes a matter of rinse and repeat until one team scores more than the other team with equal possessions.

Hastings elected to be on defense first and they quickly put a stop to the Cretin offense. After the first offensive play by the Raiders, it was clear that the Cretin defense was worn out. Zeien and the Raiders offensive line were easily pushing Cretin back three to four yards per play and on the third play from scrimmage, Zeien walked into the endzone, nearly untouched to give Hastings the win 27-21.

“We just got going a little bit more consistently. I know we are struggling in certain areas, when we watch film, it's 10 guys good and one mistake and it's a different guy every time so it's not one guy. We weren't consistent and haven't been consistent and tonight, finally, we were much more consistent with our execution, and I thought we won up front. We talked going in that we had to win up front,” said Strain.

The conversation then led to how explosive Cole Zeien was all night.

“He was flashing all night long and he didn't play running back before this year. He's just gotten better and better. He obviously has that homerun capability too. He had that big one to start the second half, then yeah, here at the end,” smiled Strain. “I'll tell you what I remember one time down here. It was like a third and two and we ran it to him. I think he got hit in the backfield and I'm pretty sure he carried about six guys for the first down, that was a huge play.”

Of course, the success of any offense starts up front. Strain was excited about the team approach to blocking.

“They were putting guys on the ground,” he said of the offensive line. “Our linemen played extremely well. I thought we won up front and that's what we had to do. Credit to not only our linemen but all of our guys, our receivers for blocking hard are our H’s and tight ends for blocking as well as they did and then our backs running as physically as they did.”

That physicality really showed up at the end of the game as worn out as Cretin looked. Hastings will need to maintain that physicality for the offense to be successful the rest of the year, and it is possible for them to do that with the kids they have up front.

Coming up for the Raiders is a trip to Armstrong Cooper on Friday night for a 7:00 p.m. kickoff in Plymouth. Then on Oct. 12, the boys travel to St. Thomas Academy, also at 7:00 p.m. Robbinsdale Cooper comes to Todd Field on Oct 18 for senior night for another 7:00 p.m. tilt.