Wildcats cruise to third straight blowout win

WINSIDE - Hartington-Newcastle cruised to 3-0 on Friday with a 47-0 win over Winside.

The game was stopped  at halftime by Winside due to injury preventing the team from continuing the rest of the game.

“ Winside suited up 10 players for the game [because] their 11th player was out with an injury,” said HNS head coach Corey Uldrich. “We knew going into the game that if they sustained an injury, it was likely that the game would be stopped. On the second-to-last play of the first half, their starting QB was injured. They ran one more play to end the half, and then they made the decision to stop the game.”

Ending the game early was the right call considering there would already have been a running clock rule enforced at the kickoff of the second half. HNS scored 26 points in the first quarter and another 21 in the second half.

It was more of the same for HNS with five different players scoring touchdowns for the Wildcats. On defense though, there was a surprise as senior Turner Korth was not team’s leading tackler. 

That honor was taken by junior Morgan Koch this week. The junior would finish with nine tackles, with Korth right behind him with eight. Koch also returned a interception 30 yards for a touchdown on the last score of the day by HNS.

Korth started the scoring with a 37 yard pass to Lincoln McPhillips to take a lead HNS would not give up. Korth followed with a 45-yard receiving touchdown of his own, thrown by Shaye Morten. It was one of two on the night for the Morten-Korth connection.

McPhillips would score a second touchdown as well on a 57-yard punt return. It is the team’s second special team score of the year.

Morten then found Korth for the second connection before the HNS rushing game would join the receivers in the end zone. 

Ethan Koch would punch in a score from 21 yards out to start the second quarter. Kobe Heitman would follow him soon after with a 15-yard rush.

Koch’s interception for a touchdown would wrap up the first half scoring and would ultimately be the last score of the game.

Uldrich said the diversity in scoring that his team has shown to start the season will benefit them down the road when the team enters some tough district play against teams like Randolph and Bloomfield.

“We're fortunate that we can score in a variety of ways, which shows you that we have some good athletes at those skill positions.  We have a number of guys on the field that we think could score any time they touch the ball, and I think you're seeing that with the number of different ways and the number of different players that we have scoring those touchdowns.”

HNS will now have a bye week before heading into that district play. HNS dropped to Class D2 this year, and joined a district of Allen, Bloomfield, Randolph, Wausa, and Wynot.

Hartington-Newcastle next will host Randolph on Sept. 21 in a battle between two teams rated by the Lincoln Journal Star. HNS sits at ninth still with Randolph sitting at eighth.

Hartington-Newcastle 26 21 0 0 47

Winside 0 0 0 0 0

Teams Stats HNS W

Total Off 294 78

Passing Yds 133 56

Rushing Yds 161 22

Penalty Yds 6-36 1-5

First Downs 11 3

PASSING

Hartington-Newcastle - Shaye Morten, 4-5 91 yards 2 TD; Turner Korth, 2-2 42 yards 1 TD.

RUSHING

Hartington-Newcastle - Ethan Koch, 5-67 1 TD; Kobe Heitman, 8-44 1 TD; Turner Korth, 2-35; Shaye Morten, 3-11; Jake Peitz, 2-4.

RECEIVING

Hartington-Newcastle - Turner Korth, 2-86 2 TD; Lincoln McPhillips, 3-45 1 TD; Kobe Heitman, 1-2.

TACKLES

Hartington-Newcastle - Morgan Koch, 9; Turner Korth, 8; Jake Peitz, 6; Ethan Koch, 5; Kobe Heitman, 5; Carson Sudbeck, 4; Lincoln McPhillips, 3; Dylan Dendinger, 3; Shaye Morten, 2; Austin Burcham, 2; Brady Heitman, 1.

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