Dogies are making strides on gridiron

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
It used to be called the Weston County Civil War, but now that Upton has teamed up with Sundance to play football in the 2A Conference, the name has changed — however the rivalry has not.
The Dogies made the drive to Sundance Thursday for their conference opener against the Upton/Sundance Patriots with some motivation to up their game over the first two weeks of the season. Though they didn’t come away with a win, head coach Matt Conzelman is pleased to see that his team is taking huge steps forward with every game they play.
“I thought it was a fun game! We still need to work on execution and some other things, but I feel like we’re going in the right direction,” he said. “The Patriots are no slouch team. They are ranked fifth in the state for a reason, with a history and a tradition of winning which is on their side. We were right there though, and we had them on the fence.” 
Upton came out of the gate swinging and put one on the board in the first quarter. On the PAT attempt, they fumbled the snap but were able to turn lemons into lemonade as they got around the edge and into the end zone for the two-point conversion to go up 8-0. 
Then Dogie defense got to work. As the clock ticked down to close out the first quarter, Upton/Sundance was making another drive when Newcastle forced a fumble to retake possession.
“It was a great turn of events and we finally
got in!” said Conzelman. “Our D was playing well again and we segued that into our first TD of the season.”
At the tail end of the first quarter, the Patriots ran a sweep and Holden McConkey was flowing on defense. According to Conzelman, he over-pursued a little and the ball carrier attempted to jump him for an open path to the end zone. 
Senior Slade Roberson was having none of it. He was right there and just lit him up causing a fumble which the Dogies recovered. The recovery happened right about midfield, and, ramped up by the turnover, Newcastle began to drive down the field. 
The first quarter ended, so the Dogies switched sides to start the second and Roberson put the team on his back and ran through the Patriot defense in six plays to punch in the Dogies’ first touchdown of 2021.
“We kept smash-mouthing Slade and he got in for the first score of the season,” Conzelman said. “There was just really no stopping him.”
Having closed the gap to two points, Conzelman opted to go for the two-point conversion, but a missed block thwarted freshman Connor Stohlhammer’s attempt to convert so the Patriots maintained an 8-6 lead. 
From there the battle ensued. Upton/Sundance was able to get a slant on the Dogies to punch another one in before the end of the first half, but this time they failed on the PAT attempt, so they went into the break with a 14-6 lead. 
“Being able to capitalize off their errors was great,” Conzelman began. “And we still felt pretty good knowing that all we needed was to get another one in and convert the two-point attempt and then we’d be all tied up again.”
Unlike the first two contests of the season, the Dogies were able to pick up 66 of their 140 yards on the ground in the final two frames of play. Though they got close, however, they weren’t able to punch another one in the end zone.
In the third quarter Upton/Sundance extended their lead to 21-6 using a run play that the Dogies struggled to defend.
“They had a play that kept getting the best of us,” Conzelman admitted. “They faked one way and went the other and we just had a hard time stopping them.”
Then in the fourth quarter, the Dogies helped out their opponent for their final score of the night.
Newcastle was backed up on a punt, and ended up fumbling the ball in their own end zone which the Patriots fell upon to pull even further ahead and put up a 28-6 lead, which closed out the scoring for both teams. 
“There at the end, we were making a drive and I was really hoping to get back in the end zone and get another one on the board,” Conzelman stated. “Then we could try an onside kick and see what would happen. Tanner [Neilsen] had it in his hands in the end zone, but couldn’t hang onto it and then they came out and took a knee and it was over.”
In their third game of the season, the Dogies are certainly showing progress. This week they were able to put together some offense in the second half, which is something they had struggled with in their first two contests of the year.
“I’m trying to instill in them the ‘Never Say Die’ Dogie mindset which is that we go full throttle until the end no matter what, and I think it’s working,” Conzelman determined. “We’re still making some mistakes, of course, and it doesn’t take much to stall up a drive. We had the momentum going and then we’d make a mistake at a costly time, but all our goals are still in front of us, and we’re working toward those.”
So far the Dogies have been faced with pretty daunting challenges and going up to Big Horn this week will be another tough one. 
“They aren’t ranked, but they also have a pretty strong tradition up there in Ram Country,” Conzelman acknowledged. “They’re always a tough, well-coached team, so we have to ramp things up again this week.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 this Friday in Big Horn.