Justin Northwest defense seals victory, ends L.D. Bell’s undefeated run

With too many big plays to count in a zany and exciting second half, Justin Northwest’s Brady Taylor picked off a pass with just 29 seconds to play to preserve a 19-17 win over L.D. Bell on a picture-perfect Friday night at Pennington Field

.The two District 4-6A teams entered the game with different perspectives – Bell undefeated through five games and Northwest 1-3, with those losses by a total of only eight points.

After a somewhat dull first half, which may have been a touch boring for the large crowd, both teams intensified their offenses in the second half. Northwest jumped out to a 19-0 lead with only 1:44 left in the third quarter, and Bell didn’t seem to have an answer offensively to counter the hard running of Caris Sela for the Texans.

Sela had the only points of the first half on a 9-yard run around the left side with 6:26 left in the second quarter. That score followed a scoreless first quarter, when Northwest moved the ball but stalled and had a field goal blocked.

In the second half, Northwest built its 19-0 lead with two touchdown passes from Mark Hartman. The first was to Nic Curley from 13 yards out, and then a 23-yard swing pass to Braden Wydner. Hartman ended the game with 106 yards passing on 12 of 19 passes with one interception.

Sela was the workhorse on the ground for the Texans with 115 yards on 25 carries. He was especially impressive in a final drive that ended on a fourth-down run that was stopped by a fired-up Bell defense. The Blue Raiders had a final chance to pull the game out with 1:12 to play and no timeouts.

Bell only needed another field goal by its strong kicker Grady Matcham, who made a 30-yarder earlier in the final quarter. Bell quarterback Bryalon Harris connected with Taysen Rutschman on a 48-yard bomb to move the Blue Raiders from their own 10 to just across midfield.

After a good run by Harris for 8 yards before stepping out of bounds to stop the clock, it seemed Bell might find a way to keep their five-game winning streak going. But on the next play, with only 30 seconds to play, Harris’ pass sailed high into the arms of Taylor.

It was Taylor’s second pick of the night as he got one early in the second half that led to Northwest’s second touchdown and a 13-0 advantage.

“We’ve struggled to finish some close games this year,” Northwest head coach Bill Poe said. “But our players kept believing in themselves and grinding. I couldn’t be more proud of our players, and our defense was especially good tonight to hold down a good Bell offense in the first half.”

Bell’s offense finally got untracked at the end of the third quarter when Jacob Preskenis returned a kickoff 35 yards to just short of midfield. A few plays later, on a third down, Bell running back Brendon Gleim broke a tackle and split the seam in the secondary for a 48-yard TD. The Blue Raiders went for a two-point conversion and were successful when Harris hit David Hackworth in the back of the end zone.

Another drive by Bell was set up shortly afterwards when Northwest was forced to punt from its 33-yard line. Aided by a pass interference penalty, Bell drove down to the Texans’ 13 before stalling and getting the field goal by Matcham that narrowed the score to 19-11 with 6:15 to play.

Then, things got exciting for the large home crowd when Bell’s Aiese Poese picked off a pass and rumbled down the Northwest 17-yard line. Two plays later, Preskenis slashed through the left side of the Texans’ defense for a score.

Going for the two-point conversion to tie the game with 4:34 remaining, Harris was sacked by a hard-charging Kaden Olson to preserve the Texans’ lead.

Before the final push by Bell that ended in the interception, the Blue Raiders’ defense made a stop at their own 10-yard line when linebacker Asher Saintelus was able to stop the powerful plunge by Sela.

It was a tough loss for Bell as an undefeated season was spoiled, but head coach TJ Dibble was complimentary of his team’s effort.

“I’m proud of the way we scratched our way back into the game in the second half,” Dibble said. “Ultimately, we did not make enough plays down the stretch to win.”