Panthers sneak past Red Devils in nail biter

The crowd went wild at last Friday’s Saratoga High School football game, as the Panthers made a last-minute squeeze past the Hulett Red Devils with a close 52-50 victory.

The Panthers led first in the first quarter, after a field goal kick from Rodrigo Escobedo, which was followed by a touchdown by Kyle Bartlett and a reliable Escobedo point after touchdown kick. Much of the game afterward seemed to be an even flip-flop, with back-and-forth touchdown scoring from both teams, but things got tense once Hulett was leading 50-44 with only two-and-a-half minutes left in the game.

Crunch time came when Kyle Bartlett scored a touchdown in the last two minutes of the game, followed by another Escobedo PAT kick, which broke the 50-50 tie and landed the 52-50 winning score. The Red Devils had a slim chance of taking over in the remaining one minute and 20 seconds left in the game, and the local crowd went wild as the clock struck zero.

The win put the Panthers at 4-2 overall and 1-2 for their eastern conference, making for a nice comeback after their Oct. 7 Homecoming game loss against Kaycee. Head coach Scott Bokelman said he had a feeling that his team would pull through and eventually take over in the end.

“You just gotta remain calm and do your job, and good things happen,” he said. “I had a good feeling about that we were gonna get a stop. We knew we could be a good football team if we played hard on every snap, and everybody does their job. We got to that point tonight.”

Bokelman said the implementation of different strategies also played a major part in the victory.

“We spread them out a little bit and tried a different set formation, and it seemed to work,” he said. “It got them a little off balance, and then we went back to some of our old stuff, and it started working, too. They had a hard time stopping us and we had a hard time stopping them, but when it came to crunch time we got the job done.”

Bokelman also pointed out Kyle Bartlett, Tate Stinson, Rodrigo Escobedo and freshman Alex Ziegler as key players, but commended the whole team for their hard work and good gameplay. Bartlett scored four of the team’s touchdowns, while Stinson managed two, and Escobedo sank four of his six attempted PAT kicks.

“Kyle ran the ball well, Tate played well, Rod played well and Alex stepped up and made some big tackles, which he hadn’t done before,” Bokelman said. “I don’t really want to pick anyone out because they all played well, so I could name all our kids. The whole defense stepped up and played well, and offensively we were making plays like we hadn’t been. Good things are really happening.

The game was fun and the kids need to enjoy it, and we’ll get to work and see what we can do next week,” Bokelman said.

The Panthers’ next game is against Guernsey-Sunrise’s Vikings Friday, followed by a home game Oct. 24 against HEM’s Miners.