Dogies lick Tongue River

The Dogie football team improved their conference standings to 2-1 as Tongue River came to town on Saturday for an afternoon match-up. Head coach Matt Conzelman’s crew proved to be far too much for the Eagles to handle, as Newcastle dominated the contest to take the 34-12 victory.

Head coach Matt Conzelman noted that, despite the rather lopsided score, his team had adversity to face and overcome in the game.

“We had 10 penalties, Collin [McConkey] got an 80-yard touchdown run called back on a holding call and the temperature read 99 degrees at one point,” he began. “We overcame all that adversity and didn’t
let anything get to us too bad, though.”

The Dogies received to start the contest, and Landon Hatheway ran the kickoff back 55 yards to put his team in great field position. However, the drive stalled out after the advantageous start.

In their second series, McConkey was able to punch the ball into the end zone on a five-yard scamper to get Newcastle on the board. McConkey also ran in the two-point conversion, giving the Dogies an 8-0 lead.

The Eagles got in at the end of the first quarter, then McConkey had a great
defensive play to block the PAT kick, thus the first quarter ended with the Dogies on top 8-6.

In the second frame of play, McConkey punched the ball in again on an eight-yard run after the Dogies got the ball on a turnover. The Dogies weren’t able to convert the PAT so went into the half-time break up 14-6.

In the third, Landon Hatheway scored from 12 yards out, and Cole Erb hit the PAT to bring it to 21-6.

In the fourth, Troftgruben scored from 13 yards out, and Erb was good on the PAT. Finally, McConkey scored from three yards out, and Erb missed the PAT.

“Even though I thought we maybe overlooked Tongue River in the first half, we were able to pull things together and execute like we needed to in the second half,” Troftgruben said.

“Once the O line (offensive line) figured out how to take care of the Eagles’ linebackers trying to blitz, they did a great job of opening things up for us to move the ball,” he
continued.

The Eagles were able to score prior to McConkey’s last touchdown, but again missed the extra point opportunity, leading to the 34-12 Dogie W.

Though turnovers were an issue for Newcastle, the Dogies took pretty good care of the ball on offense, and were able to swipe the ball when Colton Hatheway nabbed an interception and Dane Crabtree recovered a fumble forced by Drew Conzelman.

“Defense did a good job swarming the ball and we got some good stops on third down,” Conzelman said. “But I’d like to see us get a little faster start and to score on that first possession since we put ourselves in a great position to do so, but as far as the grit and the fight that they showed, I thought the offensive line did a great job all day creating holes and getting some really nice blocks for our runners and for Teddy.”

Troftgruben identified hitting wide receiver Cort Perino in a couple of back-to-back passes as his favorite moment of the game.

“It was awesome to be able to complete to Cort twice since I hadn’t been able to do that in a while,” he said. “It was cool to pick up some momentum in our passing game with those.”

This week, the Dogies go to Glenrock on Friday to take on the Herders. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.