Football: High-Flying Hawks tame Tigers

Eli Rockett (21) team-high 12.5 tackles vs. Chaska (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Friday night's match-up between Farmington and Chaska figured to be battle between a Tiger defense that had surrendered just 44 points in four games and a big-play Hawk offense that had averaged 45 points a night.

The tone for the Hawks' 56-7 runaway win in their homecoming game was set on the game's first possession when after two short gains Chaska quarterback Justin Arnold broke loose on a 77-yard touchdown run. The game was 1:06 old.

That was just the beginning of long night for the Farmington defense that gave up an eye-popping 561 yards (333 rushing and 238 passing) to the high-flying Hawks.

"By itself that kind of start isn't what hurt us so much," Farmington coach Mark Froehling said. "We had faced adversity in other games and bounced back to win games.

Mac Bassett TD catch (photo by Jim Lindquist)

"Tonight was simply a matter of a good football team playing very good football combined with us not performing well. This can serve as a good lesson for us. We'll see what kind of character we have and how we respond to this."

"This" was a beatdown of major proportions. The sixth-rated Hawks (Class 5A) executed to perfection what  Froehling and his staff had spent all week preparing to stop, the big play. Five of Chaska's touchdowns covered 30 or more yards; four were longer than 50.

"They have some very talented athletes and they can score in a hurry," Froehling said.

The two biggest pains in the Tigers' backside were slippery junior quarterback Justin Arnold and hard-running tailback Caleb Seiffert. Each gained more than 100 yards on the ground and Arnold burned the Farmington secondary for four scores through the air.

Chaska led 35-0 at intermission and dominated defensively as well, holding the visitors to just three first downs in the opening half, one of those by penalty.

Twenty-one more points points in the third period, the last on a 60-yard punt return on the final play of the quarter, sent the game into running time mode.

Tyler VanWinkle 18 of 28, 141 yards, TD (photo by Jim Lindquist)

The Tigers scored their only points on the night on a 74-yard drive late in the fourth quarter capped by a four-yard pass from Tyler VanWinkle to Mac Bassett.

VanWinkle bounced back from a rough outing last week in the win over New Prague to complete 18 of 28 passes for 141 yards.  Bassett had sis catches for 65 yards and Jordan DeCroock for 40.

The running game, however, was almost non-existent. The Tigers finished with just 40 yards on the ground.

Safety Eli Rockett had a busy night on defense, finishing with a team-high 12.5 tackles. Linebackers Mason Auge and Nick Ruark had seven and four respectively.

Froehling said the best thing for his team is to put the loss to the Hawks in its rear view mirror.

"We can't control games that have already been played," he said, "only the ones in front of us. We are a 4-1 football team now and there are a lot of teams who would like to be able to say that.

"We have a lot of football ahead of us. We need to get back to work and start preparing for next week."

Chanhassen, a 55-0 winner over New Prague Friday night, pays a visit to Tiger Stadium Friday night.