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REGIONAL- North Woods senior running back Kaden Gornick etched his name in Grizzlies football lore on Friday with a scintillating 96-yard touchdown run, the first of an eight-touchdown avalanche as …
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REGIONAL- North Woods senior running back Kaden Gornick etched his name in Grizzlies football lore on Friday with a scintillating 96-yard touchdown run, the first of an eight-touchdown avalanche as the Grizzlies buried Bigfork 54-6 on Friday in Bigfork.
With the Grizzlies’ regular backfield workhorse Nick Abramson unavailable for the game, Gornick more than picked up the slack, galloping for 151 yards on seven carries and two touchdowns. His first score, coming in the first quarter with the Grizzlies pinned deep at their own four-yard line, was electric. With North Woods blockers sealing the defense to the inside, Gornick broke loose around left end. By the time he reached the 20 it was a footrace with four Huskies in hot pursuit down the sideline, but Gornick would not be caught, taking it all the way to the house. Quarterback Talen Jarshaw tacked on the two-point conversion for an early 8-0 lead.
With the North Woods defense shutting down the Huskies offense, the Grizzlies took advantage of their scoring opportunities, cashing in three more first-quarter touchdowns – a 30-yard pass from Jarshaw to Carson Johnson, a 30-yard Jarshaw sprint, and a 20-yard Gornick run. With a James Yernatich catch and a Johnson run for conversions, the Grizzlies led 30-0 by the end of the period.
The Grizzlies’ Trajen Barto upped the advantage to 36-0 with a 26-yard second quarter score before the Huskies finally got on the board with their only points of the game on a 13-yard-run.
The Grizzlies built on their 36-6 halftime lead in the third quarter, with Jarshaw finding paydirt on a 31-yard scamper and Johnson running it in from six yards for scores. With a 48-6 edge and a running clock in the fourth quarter, Taysean Boshey-Wilkerson put the punctuation point on the beatdown with an 11-yard touchdown run.
The Grizzlies’ ground game was unstoppable all night long. In addition to Gornick’s big game, Jarshaw racked up 101 yards on nine carries for two touchdowns and a conversion, while Johnson toted the ball 12 times for 85 yards, a touchdown and a conversion, Boshey-Wilkerson rolled up 68 yards and a touchdown on four carries, and Barto touched the ball twice for 33 yards and a score.
Jarshaw was four-for-12 passing, completing two to Yernatich for 33 yards as well as the 30-yard touchdown to Johnson and a seven-yard completion to Gornick.
On defense, the Grizzlies dominated with 15 players racking up solo tackles. Jarshaw led the way with five, and Johnson and Gornick tallied four each.
Head Coach Joel Anderson said he was glad to get Gornick back into the lineup after an early-season injury.
“We had a nice welcome back moment there for Kaden –it was great to see him back in full uniform and full pads,” Anderson said. “That’s what he’s been able to do for us for a number of years now. He understands angles, he understands when to explode, and he’s a big, powerful kid, tough to bring down with just arms. So, it was a nice way to get his season back on the go.”
Film study and execution of schemes paid off on both sides of the ball, Anderson said. The offensive line created the holes for the huge rushing effort, and the plan on the other side of the ball came together just the way Anderson envisioned.
“We had a nice game plan going in and our guys played their spots perfectly pretty much all night long,” Anderson said. “They made the right reads, they attacked when they were supposed to attack, and they contained when they were supposed to contain.”
And it also helped that the defense flipped the turnover advantage decidedly in favor of the Grizzlies, too, with Jarshaw, Rogelio Noyes, Jett Lambert, and Gunnar Dantes covering fumbles and Barto and Jarshaw snagging interceptions.
“We turned them over, I think, three times there in the first quarter and we turned every one of those turnovers into points, which is a big thing for any team,” Anderson said. “It’s hard to come back from that.”
The Grizzlies were scheduled to cap off their regular season on Wednesday with a road trip to Cook County. At 4-2, the Vikings promised to be a stern test for North Woods, having given up just one touchdown in their last three games while scoring 126 points. With a win, the Grizzlies would even their record at 4-4 heading into sectional playoffs.
The Section 7A playoffs begin on Tuesday. Check timberjay.com or the newspaper’s Facebook page this weekend for information on pairings, locations and times.