Hurley fends off Athens' upset bid

By JASON JUNO

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ATHENS, Wis. - Hurley has given up just 26 points in three Northwoods East Conference games this season. All of the other top teams in the league have given up more than double that.

They're still undefeated because of it.

The Northstars used another stellar defensive effort to hold off an upset bid by winless Athens and go home with a 12-6 victory Friday night. They needed their defense to stand tall because of their problem with penalties and while they work to get their offense right.

Hurley committed 14 penalties Friday night with 11 of them coming on the offensive end. While their passing game has looked electric this season, they only completed one pass Friday night and their offense has scored the fewest points by far among the top four teams in the league.

Hurley went home a bit frustrated with how they won. But they won, they're still undefeated and that made their frustrations a bit more manageable.

"Take a W, go home, and try to fix some of the issues," Hurley coach Scott Erickson said.

Athens is a young team with two seniors and three juniors. They grew up a lot Friday night, coach Todd Diethelm said.

"We've talked about it all week, no one gave us a chance against this team," he said. "But they believe in themselves. We haven't won a game yet, but we've been playing hard. That's all I can ask. We're outmanned size-wise every week, but they came, they brought it and I'm beyond proud."

They certainly made Hurley earn its 6-0 halftime lead.

Athens started its second possession on the Hurley 25 after a fake punt attempt went backwards. Ty Hall made the first of his three first-half interceptions, and four overall, to end the scoring threat.

Hurley fumbled and a Hall interception ended another Athens drive.

Hurley started at its own 15. Devin Soltis picked up 26 yards on the ground, but Hurley only got to the 21 because of three penalties. They overcame that, though, as they turned it into a 13-play, 85-yard scoring drive, wrapped up by a nine-yard touchdown run by Soltis with 4:53 left in the first half. The conversion failed, after a Hurley penalty.

On the ensuing drive, Athens got to the Hurley 17 before throwing it to Hall again.

It was more of the same in the third quarter.

Athens intercepted a Hurley pass and got to the Hurley 25 when the Northstars got a big stop on fourth and 2.

The Northstars turned it over on downs at their own 34. They stopped the Bluejays again on fourth and 2 at the Hurley 15.

"Our defense kept hanging in there," Erickson said. "It's hard to stop a team in 8-man football in four downs. We did a really job of doing that when they got down close enough to threaten."

"Their defense is tough; well, they're athletic, their D-line is big, they take up all the blockers and their linebackers are fast and good athletes and they make plays," Diethelm said.

Soltis broke free on the second play of the next drive, going 82 yards for a touchdown and a 12-0 Hurley lead with 41 seconds to go in the third quarter.

"It was about time we got a pop out run," Erickson said. "We had another one on them and then we had a holding penalty on it. It's just one of those things tonight."

That came after Athens' next drive ended on Hall's fourth interception of the night. It was Soltis again with another long TD run, before the holding call negated it. Hurley at least was able to work 5:17 off the clock before punting.

Athens followed with its only touchdown drive of the night. An onside kick in the final minute was recovered by Hurley.

"It was penalty-ridden on our side and the kids got to handle that better. Mental errors will kill you," Erickson said. "I've always stressed to teams, 'Don't beat yourselves,' and tonight we really tried to beat ourselves. We've got to try to rectify that or this thing ain't going very far."

Soltis rushed for 154 yards on 18 carries as the Northstars finished with 213 yards on 32 carries. They completed the one pass for 26 yards.

"When we didn't have penalties, we were able to run the football pretty well, contain the line of scrimmage," Erickson said. "We have some things to clean up. I don't know what the deal was, some of the things on film didn't look like they were real false starts at some point, but the umpire was seeing something that we didn't see. Those false starts are tough penalties to take as well as missed alignments or illegal formations or that sort of stuff. Those are all tough penalties that you shouldn't be taking in week four."

Diethelm saw Hurley on film and he wasn't so sure they'd be able to contain that offense. It has certainly looked good at times, with the passing game leading them to wins over Prentice and league contender Flambeau.

"We really keyed on their main guys, our D-line did a lot of things right, they bear crawled and they shot gaps like were supposed to and we did what we were supposed to," he said.

Athens played better than an 0-4 team. Penalties stalled Hurley drives. Neither aspect of the Hurley offense worked all that well.

"They're physical, they're tough," Erickson said. "We struggled running, it was a bad night for throwing. They got pressure on us and we couldn't find receivers. I knew that was going to be an issue at some point."

Hurley knew it would have a good defense this year and that certainly continued with only the one touchdown allowed.

"I'm happy the way they tackled again, I'm happy the way they're playing defensively," Erickson said.

Hall had a big night with four big interceptions.

"He's playing with the right leverages," Erickson said. "He's not only doing a good job with the pass coverage, he's also doing a good job in the tackle game. He's knocking guys out of bounds when he has to, he's coming up on runs on the outside. Really, really pleased with where he is defensively."

Gavyn Moore led Hurley with 14 tackles (seven solo), Soltis had 11 (nine solo), and Tristan Pylkas had 10 (seven solo).

Hurley (4-0) will look to fare better against another winless team Friday night when Washburn comes to Hurley for a 7 p.m. matchup.

Washburn has lost two games by 40 points and its most recent 50-0 at Bruce. Bruce has a 2-2 record; its other opponents have one or zero losses each.

"Looking at them on film, they look pretty young," Erickson said. "I think we have some of our own issues to fix here this week and that's the goal."

Hurley 0 6 6 0 - 12

Athens 0 0 0 6 - 6

First Quarter

No scoring

Second Quarter

Hur - Devin Soltis 9 run (pass failed), 4:53

Third Quarter

Hur - Soltis 82 run (pass failed), :41

Fourth Quarter

Ath - Daxton Diethelm 10 pass from Kamden Zarnke (pass failed), :38

Hur Ath

First downs 7 11

Rushes-yards 32-213 37-137

Comp-Att-Int 1-5-2 10-20-4

Passing 26 55

Total yards 239 192

Penalties-yards 14-105 6-45

Fumbles-lost 2-1 2-0

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING - Hurley, Devin Soltis 18-154, Jack Rowe 11-48, Wyatt Hall 3-11. Athens, Evin Passehl 17-55, Kamden Zarnke 13-41, Daxton Diethelm 7-41.

PASSING - Hurley, Jack Rowe 1-3-26-1, Devin Soltis 0-2-0-1. Athens, Kamden Zarnke, 8-19-55-4, Saxton Diethelm 0-1-0-0..

RECEIVING - Hurley, Wyatt Hall, 1-26. Athens, Daxton Diethelm 4-25, Evin Passehl 4-30.