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Hayden football falls to Wray in playoffs

Tigers knew top Class 1A team would present a challenge

Luke Graham
Hayden High School senior Graig Medvesk tries to break a tackle during the first half of Saturday's quarterfinal playoff game against Wray. Hayden lost 47-7.
Matt Stensland

— The Hayden High School football team knew that to get a win against Wray, most everything would have to go right.

Unfortunately, whatever could go wrong for the Tigers, did.

Wray, the top seed and the only undefeated team in the Class 1A playoffs, relied on a stingy defense and a second-quarter burst to run away with a 47-7 victory Saturday in Hay­den.



The Eagles, now 11-0, used short fields, a power running game and a seemingly endless stream of good breaks to run out to a 34-7 halftime lead.

“We knew that going in,” Hay­­den coach Shawn Baum­gart­­ner said. “I thought we fought hard, especially that first quarter. But you put yourself in a hole like that against a team like this, and it’s an uphill battle the whole time.”



The wind was whipping, and Hayden had to go against the wind in the first quarter. The wind clearly affected the Tigers’ special teams and especially Hayden’s punting unit.

The Tigers offense went three-and-out on its first three drives of the game. Short punts gave the Eagles the ball at the 33-, 30- and 23-yard lines of the Tigers. Wray used that field position to get a pair of touchdown runs from Cade Reinick to go up, 14-0.

Hayden answered early in the second quarter when quarterback Graig Medvesk found Ryan Domson from 35 yards out to cut the lead to 14-7 with 9 minutes, 55 seconds left in the first half.

“The corner jumped it, and Ryan went over the top,” said Medvesk, who finished 11 of 20 for 109 yards but threw three interceptions. “He came open, and I found him.”

From there, Wray used the last 10 minutes of the half to show why many consider the team the best in Class 1A.

Jarret Cure caught a 7-yard pass from quarterback Brett Vlasin to put the team up, 20-7, and then Vlasin scored on a 8-yard run with 53 seconds left in the half to make it 28-7.

The next series spoke to the entire game. Hayden was moving the ball with less than a minute left when Medvesk tried to find tight end Treyben Letlow. Letlow made a jumping effort for the ball, and after it bounced around, it found its way into Wray’s Ben Jones’ hands. Jones returned it 45 yards for a 34-7 lead.

“It was really hard,” Med­vesk said. “They’re tough, and they just kept scoring, and we kept going down. There wasn’t much we could do.”

Wray, better known for its passing game, ate up the clock with its ground game, getting a 23-yard touchdown run and an 18-yard touchdown pass from Vlasin in the third quarter to seal the win.

“We didn’t throw as much as we normally do, but that was the plan,” Wray coach Levi Kramer said. “We wanted to make a statement that we can run the ball. Our mantra since I’ve been here is we’ve got to earn one more week together. Our goal is one more week.”

Wray ran for 231 yards, including 109 on just 10 carries by Vlasin. The Eagles defense limited Hayden to 193 total yards and just 39 on the ground.

“They showed a lot of character the whole year,” said Baumgartner, whose team opened the season 1-3. “For them to battle back, I think people had written us off a little bit. You get to the quarterfinals, and you’re playing a really good team. We knew we had that on our hands today.”


Wray 47, Hayden 7

Wray /Hayden

16 /First Downs /7

48-232 /Rushes-Yards /16-39

5-10-0 /Comp-Att-Int /14-26-3

78 /Yards Passing /154

309 /Total Yards /193

2-34.5 /Punts-Avg. /5-25

2-0 /Fumbles-lost /0-0

1-5 /Penalties-Yards/2-10

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Wray 07-27-13-00—47

Hayden 00-07-00-00—7

SCORING SUMMARY

First Quarter

W — 6:55, Cade Reinick 3 run. (Colin Brauer kick.)

Second Quarter

W — 11:16, Reinick 1 run. (Brauer kick.)

H — 9:55, Ryan Domson 35 pass from Graig Medvesk. (Ty Dunckley kick.)

W — 5:43, Jarret Cure 7 pass from Brett Vlasin. (Kick fail.)

W — 0:53, Vlasin 10 run. (Cure from Vlasin.)

W — 0:28, Ben Jones 45 yard INT return. (Kick fail.)

Third Quarter

W —  3:55, Vlasin 23 run. (Jonas Hanson kick.)

W — 0:00, Jack Schwinn 18 pass from Vlasin. (Kick fail.)

Fourth Quarter

None.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing

W: Vlasin 10-109, 2 TD; Reinick 19-59, 2 TD; Austin Willard 4-32; Cole Beckman 5-28; Schwinn 1-7; Derek Schulz 6-5; Jonas Cure 1-(-4); Baylor Buck 1-(-5); Ramon Tarin 1-1.

H: Medvesk 11-35; Ben Williams 4-(-3); Domson 1-7.

Passing

W: Vlasin 5-10-0, 78 yards, 2 TD.

H: Medvesk 11-20-3, 109 yards, 1 TD; Mark Doolin 3-6-0, 45 yards.

Receiving

W: Jarret Cure 4-60, 1 TD; Schwinn 1-18, 1 TD.

H: Domson 1-35, 1 TD; Treyben Letlow 6-48; Williams 4-57; Dayton Dowling 1-6; Ryan Romine 1-5; Doolin 1-3.


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