If the Juneau Huskies are going to be a good football team this year they’ll need to hold onto the ball better than they did Saturday in Anchorage.
South Anchorage High School made a statement with an early touchdown and the Huskies were on the verge of an equally assertive answer on the ensuing drive until they fumbled the ball on the Wolverines’ 4-yard line.
And while Juneau kept its composure and the score at 7-0 until the final few minutes of the first half, the Huskies also fumbled two more times to keep giving South Anchorage chances. The Wolverines would finally take advantage with two touchdowns in the final two-and-a-half minutes of the first half, then broke open the game with three more touchdowns in the second half for a 42-0 victory.
Juneau (1-2 this season) missed other opportunities as well, including at least two missed passes to open receivers that could have gone for touchdowns.
“We’ve just got to find a formula that we can bring that energy on the road that we have at home, and we just need to work as a group to get ourselves in a better spot,” Head Coach Rich Sjoroos said afterward. “In the beginning of the game, middle of the game, end of the game we just really didn’t get anything rolling all day long. And we just need to get back to the drawing board a little bit on some things.”
It was the second straight game Caleb Ziegenfuss, a senior, filled in at quarterback following an injury to starter Noah Ault early in last week’s game, with the Huskies continuing to run an offense featuring direct snaps to different players in the backfield. Sjoroos said a timetable for Ault’s return should be known within a few days, but in the meantime “I was proud of Caleb.”
“Sometimes it’s tough when you don’t get all the reps,” Sjoroos said. “But he got them all this week and definitely played a lot better, even though we didn’t come out on top. I thought it was a better game than he played at quarterback even a week ago. His decision-making, when it came to throwing the football, and he showed a lot of toughness running the ball and a good huddle presence, and different things that you look for in a quarterback.”
Anchorage South High School recovers a fumble near its goal line to end a drive by the Juneau Huskies during Saturday’s game in Anchorage. (Screenshot from Juneau Huskies Football livestream)
Meanwhile, South Anchorage (1-2) ran a spread offense that put up big passing numbers, including a perfectly thrown 50-yard touchdown pass from Cole Yarrington to Caleb Doerr to make the score 28-0 with 8:34 left in the third quarter to end any serious hope of a Huskies comeback.
Sjoroos said one reason Juneau may have struggled is during much of the week “nine or 10 different kids were out on a given day” at practice, which limited the team’s ability to simulate the situations they expected to face against the Wolverines. South Anchorage had committed numerous turnovers while losing their first two games, but “that quarterback played great for them, played a phenomenal football game,” Sjoroos said.
But for most of the first half Juneau gave as well as it got in terms of key plays that could have affected the outcome for better or worse.
After an exchange of punts on their opening possessions, Yarrington hit a long pass for South Anchorage to make the score 7-0 with 7:22 left in the first quarter.
Juneau came back with a strong ground game, including converting a fourth-and-2 on its side of the field, and drove the ball to the Wolverines’ 4-yard line. But on third-and-goal Ziegenfuss fumbled as he was stuffed on a run and South Anchorage recovered the ball in the shadow of their end zone.
Yarrington got the Wolverines out of trouble with a pass to Doerr at the Juneau 5, then on a third-and-18 ran for a first down near midfield. But on the next play an arching pass was intercepted by Juneau’s Sage Schultz at the Huskies’ 32-yard line.
A nine-yard run gave Juneau a second-and-1 situation, but Ziegenfuss overthrew a wide-open Jayden Johnson on a long pass that would have been an easy score. A few plays later Ziegenfuss hit a rollout pass to Johnathyn Kestel to convert a third-and-5 near midfield. But on the next play a direct snap to a running back was fumbled and recovered by South Anchorage at its own 47-yard line.
South Anchorage, after a Yarrington-to-Doerr completion to the Juneau 23-yard line on the first ensuring play, proceeded to make its own series of mistakes. A holding penalty and a backfield fumble recovered by the Wolverines put them in a second-and-25 situation. Another Yarrington-to-Doerr completion made it third-and-7, but a holding play negated a first down and South Anchorage would ultimately turn the ball over when a fourth-and-12 pass was lofted out of bounds with about 4:50 left in the half.
On the next play by Juneau from its 25-yard line, Samuel Sarof broke tackles into the secondary, but fumbled the ball and South Anchorage recovered on the Huskies’ 40-yard line. South Anchorage would march down the field quickly on a completed pass, a quarterback scramble, a Juneau penalty and finally a two-yard quarterback sneak to make the score 14-0 with 2:29 left in the half.
Juneau started its next possession deep in its own territory at the 13-yard line following a penalty on the kickoff return. On the first play the Huskies tried to strike back quickly with another long pass by Ziegenfuss to a wide-open Johnson at midfield, who missed what appeared to be a catchable ball. After a third-down sack, Juneau punted the ball back to South Anchorage, who took over at the Juneau 35-yard line with 1:05 left in the half.
The Huskies intercepted a pass two plays later, but the turnover was negated by a Juneau penalty. On a third-and-6, Yarrington hit his second touchdown pass to make the score 21-0 and the Huskies’ ensuing drive stalled at midfield as the clock ran out in the first half.
Juneau got the ball to start the second half, but turned the ball over on another fumble to South Anchorage, resulting in the long strike by Yarrington to give the Wolverines a four-touchdown lead. Two more touchdowns by South Anchorage, the last with 9:40 left in the game, completed the scoring.
The Huskies will next travel to Bishop, California, to play Bishop Union High School at 7 p.m. Friday in a non-conference game before returning home to play another Friday night game against West Anchorage High School at 7 p.m. at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. Sjoroos said the California matchup was scheduled after Brandon Ridle, the Huskies’ junior varsity coach, encountered Bishop’s football program during a tournament a year ago and felt its size compared well against Juneau’s.
“They have a really skilled program — they were 11-2 last year,” Sjoroos said. “And we looked at it and we thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got a kind of an up-and-coming group of kids and we’re up for an adventure. So we so we ended up putting the game together.”
While Juneau’s two losses have in part been attributed to the difficulties of playing on the road — in contrast to its dominating 48-6 home win against Service High School last week — Sjoroos said the longer road trip will be a different kind of experience for the players.
“We’ll go down and make an adventure of it,” he said. “It’s bigger than the game for some of these kids in that it’s maybe the only time ever traveling to that part of the country in their life. We’ll try and enjoy that as well as get to know each other more, and hopefully build on it for the remainder of the regular season. Hopefully that helps us out and makes us better.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
