Sam Petersen of Archbold gets a six yard gain during Friday’s home matchup with Lake. The Blue Streaks defeated the Flyers by a final of 17-8.
Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor
Archbold’s Isaiah Esquibel brings down Harry Jackson of Lake Friday night.
Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor
Josh Kidder hits a 40 yard field goal in the second quarter. He also hit on a pair of extra points.
Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor
Looking to bounce back from a week two loss and led by their defense which pitched a second half shutout, the Archbold football team held on for a 17-8 home victory over Lake Friday night.
“It feels a lot better than last week,” said Archbold coach David Dominique, referring to their 45-21 loss at Liberty-Benton last week. “That was a different team out there tonight. We played together. And we played a good 48 minutes of football. We had some mistakes but you know what, the mistakes didn’t kill us tonight like they did last week.”
The only blemish on the Blue Streak defense was a quick pass from Lake quarterback Dawson Delventhal to Scott Mackiewicz who took it 46 yards for a touchdown with only 32 seconds left in the opening half, reducing the Archbold lead to 10-8.
“That was a back out of the backfield (that) our linebacker (and our) end didn’t see at the time,” said Dominique of the play. “We made that adjustment in the second half and we took that play away. So I was very proud of our guys.”
Besides that hiccup, the coach was very pleased with that side of the ball.
“They played great tonight,” he said. “We were outsized, and we knew we were coming in. So we talked all week long about using our quickness up front. We couldn’t go toe to toe with those guys. And our guys did a great job all night long. Forcing turnovers, (and) got them into some third and longs’.”
The Streaks added to their lead after a fumbled handoff exchange by Lake was picked up by Archbold at the Flyer 40 yard line late in the third quarter.
Archbold quarterback Gabe Petersen then started the ensuing possession with carries of five and one yard, then an incomplete pass brought up fourth down.
On fourth down and four at the 34, running back Sam Petersen broke free and headed for paydirt but was stripped and the ball came loose at about the two. However, he would hop on the ball in the end zone and Josh Kidder’s extra point made it 17-8 with 1:58 left in the third.
The Flyers had a bunch of empty possessions after that as the Streaks would hold on for the win. Austin Wilson sealed it when he intercepted Delventhal’s pass and returned it to the Lake two yard line with just over a minute left in the game.
Dominique felt his secondary had a positive impact on the game.
“All year long, they have not given up the deep ball,” he said. “We knew going into this game that (Lake) wanted to run it. And tonight I think we got them into situations they had to throw it a little more than they liked. You take the run from a good team like that, good things happen.”
Archbold scored in just three plays on their opening possession of the game. First it was Gabe Petersen who found Nic Rodriguez for 38 yards down to the Flyer 30, then Sam Petersen ripped of a nine yard run. Gabe Petersen finished it off on a quarterback keeper for a 21-yard score, giving them a seven point advantage 2:20 in.
They closed out their scoring with Kidder’s 40 yard field goal which made it 10-0 at the 7:48 mark of quarter number two.
The Streaks, now 2-1 on the season, open up NWOAL play at Swanton this Friday before returning home to face rival Wauseon the week after.
“We’ve got to kind of ride this momentum going in and continue to improve,” said Dominique. “We are seeing improvement, but we’ve got to continue to take that next step. It doesn’t get any easier, Swanton is a great football program.
“It is a tough stretch and every week is a grind. We keep telling our guys, there is no off week.”
Reach Max Householder at 419-335-2010
