Carrington, ND (NewsDakota.com) – The Oakes Tornadoes are once again going back to the quarterfinals after beating the Carrington Cardinals by a final score of 27-21 on Saturday, October 21st.
The game started with a long drive for the Cardinals where they stretched the Tornadoes to the limit however Oakes wouldn’t break and was able to stop Carrington when Blayson Dolney intercepted Josh Bickett in the endzone. They would then get the ball and go on their own long drive that wouldn’t end tell the 2nd quarter when, with 10:15 left in the half, Blayson Dolney found Mario Garza underneath for a 6 yard touchdown reception to give Oakes the 6-0 lead.
Just under 4 minutes later Carrington would find paydirt when Logan Weninger would get an underneath pass and scamper into the endzone with 6:17 left to give the Cards a 7-6 lead. The Tornadoes would respond two plays later on a pass up the middle to Trey Skoglund for a 76 yard touchdown reception to give Oakes the 13-7 lead with 5:29 left in the half. The following three drives would stall for both teams and with :38 seconds left Carrington would attempt to punt it away, however the snap to punter Grady Shipman was too high which allowed the Tornadoes to block the punt which would be recovered by Shipman in his own endzone. He would not make it out of his endzone and be charged with a safety to give Oakes a 15-7 lead with :22 seconds left and the ball. They would make one last try for the endzone which was intercepted by Bicket as time expired.
The second half started with a stalled drive for the Tornadoes followed up by a long drive for Carrington as they would march down the field and get to the red zone. However the drive would abruptly end as Max Walock would pick off Bicket at the 5 yard line to prevent any damage. The Cards would get the ball back in the 3rd quarter and Weninger would go on a 77 yard run off of a read option play to make it 15-13 with 2:11 left to go in the quarter.
The Tornadoes would score on their responding drive however to start off the 4th quarter. Dolney would find Walock from 33 yards out on a 4th down and long to get the score back up to 21-13 with 11:34 left to go in the game. Carrington wasn’t done however as Weninger would once again find the endzone on a 9 yard run to tie the game at 21-21 with 7:56 left to go in the game. Oakes would once again respond on the following drive and score on another 4th and long on another Dolney-Walock pass this time from 13 yards out to make it 27-21 with 2:53 left. Carrington would begin the slow march up the field however they couldn’t spring anyone for longer then 5 yards at a time then with 18 seconds left in the game Marcus Garza, following up a huge sack, would intercept Bicket to seal the win.
The Players of the Game were Marcus Garza from Oakes and Logan Weninger from Carrington.
Carrington’s season comes to a close with a record of 6-4 overall.
Oakes rises to a 7-2 record and advances to the Quarterfinals where they will play against the #2 Kindred Vikings in Kindred on Saturday October 28th at 1:00 PM. Pregame coverage will begin at 12:30 PM on KDDR The Tornado.