CHERRY- Last Friday’s North Woods football game was a classic case of the Grizzlies’ David against the Cherry Tigers’ Goliath, with one major difference – the Grizzlies came without rocks for their sling, getting pummeled 76-8 on the road.
The Tigers have been an offensive juggernaut this season, scoring over 63 points per game, and they haven’t been slouches on defense, either, giving up only six touchdowns through five games. Big, fast, and undefeated, a victory against the inexperienced Grizzlies, 76-0 losers to equally dominant Mt. Iron-Buhl earlier this season, was a foregone conclusion.
But Grizzlies fans couldn’t help but get their hopes up that their team would somehow fare better than the Tigers’ first five victims, and those hopes were buoyed after Cherry opened the scoring with a five-yard touchdown by Noah Asuma and a two-point conversion by Noah Sundquist.
But North Woods found lightning in a bottle in the form of running back Kaden Gornick, who responded with a scintillating 66-yard touchdown dash down the right sideline on the next possession, and a conversion pass from Trajen Barto to Talen Jarshaw knotted the score at 8-8 with 7:26 left in the first quarter.
Aided by a Cherry holding penalty that nullified a long touchdown pass, the Grizzlies held tough and forced a Tigers punt, and it looked like North Woods might have a shot at hanging around for awhile in this one.
But Cherry snuffed out that fantasy before the quarter came to a close, scoring three touchdowns in less than five minutes on a 14-yard pass, an interception return for a pick six, and a 66-yard touchdown pass to quickly expand the lead to 32-8.
The avalanche continued in the second quarter when Cherry blocked a Rogelio Noyes punt from the North Woods 26 and recovered at the 17-yard line. Four plays later the Tigers were in the end zone again, going up 40-8. Clamping down on defense and cranking up the offense, the Tigers added three more touchdowns before halftime on a 56-yard run, a 24-yard pass, another pick six off of Grizzlies quarterback Barto, and a 30-yard pass following a Grizzlies turnover. The score at intermission was 68-8.
With the clock running in the second half, opportunities to score were more limited, and Cherry’s final score of the game came at the 3:09 mark of the third quarter on a 19-yard run, one play after another touchdown run had been called back due to a Tigers penalty.
The Grizzlies mounted their best drive of the game in the fourth quarter, moving from their own 37 to the Cherry 21, getting good runs from Barto and James Yernatich. But Barto was picked off for a third time to snuff out the Grizzlies’ scoring opportunity.
A sign of the Tigers’ defensive dominance could be seen in the Grizzlies’ 121 yards of total rushing, 66 of which came on Gornick’s touchdown run. Gornick added just ten more yards for the night on six more carries for 76 yards total. Barto had 24 yards on two carries, and Nick Abramson had 12 yards on seven carries.
Barto completed more passes to Cherry defenders than he did to his teammates, going two-for-nine with completions to Jarshaw and Mason Rutchasky while tossing three interceptions.
The 2-4 Grizzlies were scheduled to tee the ball up at home on Friday with a chance to get back in the win column against 1-5 Bigfork. North Woods will close out the regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 18 with a home game against Cook County. Kickoff will be at 6 p.m.