PREP FOOTBALL: Dutchmen take down Raiders

FULDA – The Edgerton/Ellsworth Flying Dutchmen posted 30 first-quarter points, en route to a 60-22 road win over the Fulda Raiders in a Southern Confederacy Conference football game Friday night.

The visiting Flying Dutchmen scored 30 seconds into the contest following a recovery of the opening kickoff, which was squibbed and mishandled by Fulda.

E/E’s Tyler Kurrasch recovered the ball at the Fulda 31-yard line and it took three plays for Jorge Lopez to hit pay dirt on a four-yard run, which Blake Jouwstra helped set up with a 26-yard run. Following a successful 2-point conversion by quarterback Isaac Heard, the visitors claimed an early 8-0 lead.

“We weren’t (planning on recovering that opening kickoff),” E/E head coach Andrew Fleischman said. “But it worked out well for us and gave us some early momentum.”

However, Fulda nearly regained the momentum on the following possession as the Raiders put together their best drive of the first half that chewed up more than five minutes. Zachary Holt, Todd Peterson, Nathan Getting and Trevor Ruesch each picked up first downs for the hosts on the drive.

Unfortunately, the Raider 12-play, 49-yard possession stalled out at the E/E 27-yard line and the hosts turned the ball over on downs.

It didn’t take the Flying Dutchmen long to extend the lead as five plays later Jouwstra took a reverse handoff from Heard and scampered 44 yards up the left sideline to score the second E/E touchdown with 4:31 left in the opening quarter.

Heard (14-for-18 passing for 306 yards and three TDs), who completed a pair of 13-yard passes to each Devin Hulstein and Daniel Kramer on the drive, passed the 2-point try to Jouwstra to extend the Flying Dutchmen lead to 16-0 and visitors cruised from there.

“We knew going into the game that Edgerton was going to be a tough team,” Fulda co-head coach Michael Pagel said. “We wanted to limit them to eight or less points in the first quarter and we couldn’t do that.”

Following an interception by Kurrasch (six tackles), the Flying Dutchmen offense went back to work and it took one play to extend the lead to 22-0 as Heard hit Jouwstra for a 28-yard TD pass with 3:33 left in the first quarter.

The E/E defense forced Fulda into another three-and-out on the next Raider possession and the quick-strike Flying Dutchmen needed four plays to find the end zone for the fourth time.

“We played very, very well,” Fleischman said. “We played physical on both sides of the ball and we were able to execute on offense and played downhill on defense.”

Following 24 yards gained by Austin LaFollette on three plays, Heard found a wide-open Nate Paulsen up the left sideline for a 35-yard TD connection and a Heard pass to Hulstein on the conversion made it 30-0 with 48 seconds left in the opening frame.

Fulda put together another nice drive on its next possession that saw Peterson (14-for-24 passing for 90 yards) pass for two first downs on catches by John Getting (five catches for 29 yards) and Holt (three catches for 28 yards).

However, the Raiders were forced to punt after nine plays and the Flying Dutchmen started their longest drive of the half, which resulted in 11 plays. A 30-yard pass from Heard to Kramer helped E/E get the ball inside the Raider 10-yard line, but Fulda forced a fumble two plays later that went out of the end zone and gave possession back to hosts.

The Raiders picked up another pair of first downs on their next drive, but were again forced to punt and the Flying Dutchmen used one play to extend the lead as Heard passed to Hulstein for a 71-yard touchdown on a go route up the left sideline. Heard ran in the 2-point attempt to give the visitors a 38-0 lead with 4:59 left in the first half.

Hulstein, who caught four passes for 135 yards, had no trouble in the contest getting past the Raider defense to get open for Heard’s aerials.

“We work on that a lot during the summer and in practice,” Hulstein said of his connection with the E/E quarterback. “We practice our routes every day, just working on our timing and everything.”

E/E forced Fulda into another three-and-out as Wyatt Schaap (four tackles, two sacks) recorded a sack on the series and the Flying Dutchmen found pay dirt once more before halftime.

Jouwstra, who rushed for 107 yards on eight carries and also caught three passes for 43 yards, capped off a seven play, 61-yard drive with his second rushing TD of the game on a 15-yard run with 48 seconds before the intermission. Heard punched in another 2-point conversion to give E/E a 46-0 lead at the break.

Following halftime, Fulda caught E/E off-guard when Ryan Schumacher kicked an onside kick that was recovered by Mason Trejo. However, the Raiders were unable to regain any momentum as another sack by Schaap helped the Flying Dutchmen end the Raider drive.

E/E quickly scored again as a 52-yard pass from Heard to Hulstein got the Dutchmen down to the Raider 15-yard line and following a false start penalty, Lopez punched in his second TD of the contest on a 20-yard run to make it 52-0 with 9:39 left in the third quarter.

“It’s a good combination,” Fleischman said of Heard and Hulstein. “They’ve been playing together for a long time. Isaac knows where Devin’s going to be and it works well.”

The two team’s swapped possessions before the Flying Dutchmen scored for the final time of the evening with 5:20 left in the third quarter when Paulsen, who entered to play quarterback, scampered in for a 5-yard TD run. A Lopez successful conversion gave the visitors a 60-0 lead.

Fulda’s next possession ran out the rest of the third quarter and with running time in the final frame, the Raiders managed to break the shutout. Following a 13-play drive, Ruesch broke the plane for Fulda with 8:10 left in the game on a 25-yard run. Peterson passed the conversion to John Getting to slice the lead to 60-8.

The Raiders weren’t finished scoring, however, as Nathan Getting got the ball back for the hosts as he recovered a high snap on the first E/E play of the next series.

Ruesch used a 35-yard to get the ball down to the one-yard line and Trejo punched in the short TD run and following another conversion from Peterson to John Getting, the Raiders had trimmed the gap to 60-16 with 5:55 left.

Fulda created another turnover to regain possession as Trejo recovered a fumble on E/E’s next possession and it was Trejo capping off the final Raider drive of the night on a 35-yard TD run with 33 seconds left in the game to make it 60-22.

The loss drops Fulda to 2-4 overall and also in the conference. The Raiders travel to Madelia Friday.

E/E improves to 5-1 overall and in the conference. The Flying Dutchmen travel to play Mountain Lake Area (5-1) Friday.

“We played really well tonight,” Hulstein said. “We’re happy tonight, but we look forward to getting back to work and getting ready for a tough opponent next week.”

E/E 30 16 14 0 — 60

Fulda 0 0 0 22 — 22

Tags: sports, prep, football, fulda, edgerton, ellsworth