Hurley likely needs to win to make playoffs

By JASON JUNO

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PHILLIPS, Wis. — The playoffs are starting a week early in Hurley.

The Northstars likely need to win their regular-season finale against Rib Lake at Veterans Memorial Field Friday night to ensure a spot in the WIAA 8-player postseason field.

Hurley won their first six games and then fell 48-32 at Phillips Friday night in a battle for first place in the Northwoods East Conference. It seems a bit cruel to be fighting for your playoff life with a 6-1 record, but that’s the reality.

“That’s the way it is when there’s only 16 teams in the playoffs in this division,” Hurley coach Scott Erickson said. “You know what, we got to take care of our own business. It’s a playoff game for us this week and that’s the way we’re going to approach it.”

Erickson expects there’s some talk of expanding the playoffs with what’s going on this year. Two teams that have been ranked in the top 10 in the state, Gilman and Clayton, might not make the playoffs, Erickson said. The tiebreakers don’t seem to work in the favor of Hurley, which has been ranked as high as second, if they end the regular season with two losses.

“It doesn’t look like our strength of schedule, the wins we have or our opponents’ wins will be enough,” Erickson said.

So it’s all about beating Rib Lake, which is having a strong season in their first year as an 8-player team. Their lone league loss is, like Hurley, to Phillips, 56-38 at Phillips in Week 3. They lost to Gilman 36-8 in the season opener in August.

Rib Lake scores plenty, averaging 47 points per league game, just shy of the Loggers’ 50.8 per game. Their defense has had some good efforts, giving up just six points at Flambeau and 16 against Chequamegon-Butternut-Mercer. But they gave up 56 to Phillips and 36 to Athens last week.

“They’re good offensively,” Erickson said. “They’ve got some big dudes up front and some pretty good skill people that have a lot of speed to them. They’ve scored on everybody, that’s for sure. We’re going to have our hands full.”

The Northstars need to start better than they did in Phillips last week and keep the flags off the field.

The normally slow-starting Loggers jumped Hurley to the tune of four first-quarter touchdowns.

Phillips started the game with Journee Wood taking the opening kick 82 yards to the Hurley 8. Ayron DeLeasky scored on the first play for the first of his three first-quarter rushing touchdowns and four overall.

Hurley came back with a scoring drive of its own, capped by a five-yard touchdown run by Devin Soltis. Jack Rowe’s two-point run gave Hurley its only lead of the night, 8-6.

Phillips scored on its only conventional drive of the quarter, a five-play, 54-yard drive capped by a 14-yard TD run by DeLeasky.

The ensuing kickoff took a big hop and Wood recovered the onside kick, giving Phillips the ball at the Hurley 48. A pass interference call kept the drive alive and DeLeasky ran 13 yards for a touchdown and a 20-8 lead.

Phillips onside kicks every time and it works once or more a game.

“We can’t cover kicks, so we kick onside kicks,” Phillips coach Max Ayres said. “We’re pretty physical, so after you recover one or two or there’s a couple big pops, guys don’t want to be that guy recovering the kick. It helps a lot when you can steal a possession. It can definitely put momentum in your favor.”

Phillips kept the momentum rolling. On Hurley’s next drive, Ben Virnig took the ball from a Hurley ballcarrier and ran 60 yards for a touchdown and a 26-8 lead.

“That was huge, that is a game changer,” Ayres said.

Hurley wasn’t out of the game, but they didn’t take advantage of opportunities to take the momentum back.

The Northstars scored on their next possession, on a three-yard touchdown run by Rowe. They made a play on special teams on the kickoff, after Phillips fumbled the exchange on a reverse. Ty Hall recovered the fumble and they took over at the Phillips 18 down just two touchdowns. But they couldn’t score. Two false-start penalties and then an interception in the end zone on fourth and 11 put an end to the drive.

Phillips made it hurt, scoring on the following drive for a 34-14 lead.

Hurley had still another chance to make it a game. Soltis rushed for a one-yard touchdown with four seconds left in the half. It was 34-20 and the Northstars got the ball first in the second half.

Hurley was forced to punt and the punt only went four yards because of a high snap. Three plays later, Phillips scored and led by three touchdowns once again. The teams kept trading scores from there with Soltis rushing for two more TDs to make it four on the day for him.

Hurley missed a chance to secure a league title in their first year in 8-player.

“Never easy going on somebody’s field and getting it done,” Erickson said. “Kids fought hard, it just wasn’t in the cards for us tonight.”

The teams totaled similar yardage with Phillips outgaining Hurley 383-350. Phillips got most of their yards on the ground with 346 yards on 47 carries.

The difference was the start with some crazy plays that put Hurley behind from the jump.

“It was a bad start for us tonight. Bad stuff early and then we battled back to within a couple scores at half with the ball and didn’t do nothing out of halftime with it,” Erickson said. “Credit to Phillips, they played really solid, they keep coming at you on those edges and it wears you out.”

Phillips is too big to make the WIAA playoffs. Their enrollment of 206 kids exceeds the cutoff of 200, Ayres said. So winning a battle for first place that likely gives them a conference title is the game of the year for them.

“Hurley is the class of Northern Wisconsin football, so it was one that we had marked on the calendar as soon as conferences came out,” Ayres said, referring to the league groupings determined by the WIAA ahead of the season. “They’re a good football team; fortunately the football bounced our way today.”

His players poured Gatorade on him after the game. It was chilly, in the 40s, by then, and Ayres was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt.

“Breathtaking,” he said. “(But) worth every minute.”

It’s going to be warmer this Friday night. Hurley is hoping that’s not all that’s different this week. The Northstars need to avoid the disastrous start and cut down on the 12 penalties they committed.

“We’ve got to not hurt ourselves with turnovers and penalties, which has been a killer, particularly on the road,” Erickson said. “Hopefully at home we can clean things up and play mistake free and win our seventh game.”

The game starts at 7 p.m. Friday night.

Hurley 8 12 6 6 — 32

Phillips 26 8 8 6 — 48

First Quarter

Phi — Ayron DeLeasky 8 run (run failed), 11:42

Hur — Devin Soltis 5 run (Jack Rowe run), 8:49

Phi — DeLeasky 14 run (Shay Denzine run), 6:38

Phi — DeLeasky 13 run (pass failed), 3:28

Phi — Ben Virnig 60 fumble return (run failed), 1:29

Second Quarter

Hur — Rowe 3 run (run failed), 10:46

Phi — Virnig 37 pass from Shay Denzine (Lane Abraham pass from Denzine), 4:50

Hur — Soltis 1 run (pass failed), :04

Third Quarter

Phi — Denzine 4 run (Abraham pass from Denzine), 9:45

Hur — Soltis 7 run (run failed), 6:04

Fourth Quarter

Phi — DeLeasky 1 run (pass failed), 7:41

Hur — Soltis 5 run (pass failed), 3:44

Hur Phi

First downs 15 18

Rushes-yards 39-211 47-346

Comp-Att-Int 7-15-1 1-5-0

Passing 139 37

Total yards 350 383

Penalties-yards 12-83 11-91

Fumbles-lost 3-3 2-2

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Hurley, Devin Soltis 20-79, Jack Rowe 12-75, Wyatt Hall 7-57. Phillips, Shay Denzine 21-133, Ayron DeLeasky 16-122, Binton Lowary Jr. 6-73, Lane Abraham 1-18, Sawyer Kucaba 2-5, Kalan Chuzles 1-minus 5.

PASSING — Hurley, Jack Rowe, 6-14-100-1, Devin Soltis 1-1-39-0. Phillips, Shay Denzine 1-5-37-0.

RECEIVING — Hurley, Wyatt Hall 3-115, Brodie Erickson 1-11, Ty Hall 1-7, Devin Soltis 2-6. Phillips, Ben Virnig 1-37.