The Hatchet football team suffered a 56-12 loss at the hands of Auburndale at home on Friday.
“It was a frustrating loss,” THS coach John Larson said. “We had too many missed assignments. Defensively we gave up several big plays. Offensively we could not protect our quarterback. Our passing game was not effective. At times, we ran the ball well. We need to get back to the basics.”
The Apaches used a powerful aerial attack in the game, as quarterback Blake Anderson completed 13-of-16 passes for 335 yards and five touchdowns.
After Auburndale notched running scores of 46 and five yards for a 12-0 first-quarter lead, but Tomahawk’s Turner Wegener intercepted a pass and returned it to the visitor’s 35. Five plays later, Austin Belille pounded five yards for the score to cut it to 12-6 with 3:19 left in the first quarter.
But Auburndale pushed it to 42-6 before halftime with several strikes. Anderson connected for 6, 67, and 26 yards on TD passes and Dom Lewis ran it in from one yard for the other tally.
Tomahawk cut it to 42-12 when Belille dashed 65 yards to the house on the first play from scrimmage of the second half. However, Anderson hooked up with Austin Hawkins for a 70-yard touchdown on the second play after the kickoff. Isaac Castellano raced 69 yards with an Anderson pass for his second TD and the final points.
Tomahawk finished with 225 yards rushing, from Payton DuPlayee (159 on 23 attempts), Belille (5-75) and Adam FauFau (6-5). The Hatchets ended with 15 passing yards-all to FauFau- from Belille (3-of-9 for 5 yards) and Wegener (1-of-2 for 10).
Castellano (3-149, 2 TD), Hawkins (3-77, 2) and Markos Kleifgen (3-69, 1) paced AHS receivers.
Leading defenders for THS were: DuPlayee (3 solo, 8 assists, 2 FC), Wegener (3 S, 3 A, 1 int), Belille (4 S, 2 A), FauFau (1 S, 4 A), Jacob Ungerer (1 S, 4 A).
Auburndale improved to 1-2 in the Marawood and overall, while Tomahawk fell to 0-3.