EVANSTON — 3A West Conference play opened Friday night at Green River for the Evanston High School football team, and for three of the four quarters, the Red Devils appeared poised to take the first step toward a return to the 3A State Playoffs.
A disastrous third quarter, however — one that saw a 7-7 halftime score turn into a 28-7 lead for the Wolves — proved to be Evanston’s undoing. A fourth-quarter rally brought the Red Devils within a touchdown, but head coach Steve Moore’s squad eventually ran out of clock, returning home with a 28-21 loss.
“We were in the battle,” Moore said. “Seven-seven at half, but third quarter, wheels came off. We got down 28-7, climbed our way back in it. Just fell a little short. That third quarter felt like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Wheels came off the bus, and we couldn’t get them back on.”
Down 7-0 with time winding down in the first half, Kayson Brady scored on a six-yard quarterback keeper; Matthew Gauger’s extra point made it 7-7 as the two teams went to break.
The Wolves stormed out to a 28-7 lead in the third, though Evanston finally responded at the start of the fourth, when Brady hit Timber Fitch for a 77-yard touchdown; Brady ran in a two-point conversion to make it 28-15. The Red Devils scored once more to make it 28-21, but that’s as close as they’d get, as they returned home with their first conference loss of the season.
“It was a highly-competitive game,” Moore said. “It was back-and-forth. The things I look at — the chunk plays, turnovers, time of possession — they were all pretty much equal. Penalties — we had 13, compared to their four, so that hurt us. And they were pre-snap penalties, not effort penalties — jumping offsides on defense, that kind of thing — mental mistakes. It wasn’t playing hard. So that set us back a little bit. But you look at total yards, and we actually outgained them by 15 yards. They just made more plays than we did.”
Consistency continues to be an issue with the Red Devils — something Moore said the team needs to get a handle on with teams like Cody and Star Valley still on the schedule.
“I still don’t think we’ve put four quarters together with this team,” Moore said. “We’re struggling with consistency right now. At times, we do things really well. But it seems like our mistakes are big ones that we have a hard time overcoming — monumental mistakes. That’s where the frustration comes from — we know they can do it, they’ve done it before. We’re not asking them to do things they can’t do, because they’ve proven they can do it. We’re just not doing it consistently.”
The Red Devils host 4-0 Cody Friday, and Moore said the Broncs are every bit as good as advertised.
“Cody’s good — no doubt about it,” Moore said. “They’ve been good for several years, and I think they’re as good this year as they’ve been in a long time. Offensively, they lead the state in 3A in yards per game, and they have a quarterback that can sling it around. He runs the ball really well, too. It’s hard to find a weak spot as you scout them out. We have our hands full, for sure.”
