Braves crush Hellgate
Osweiler, Gallagher establish school marks in 47-20 victory
By DIXIE KNUTSON/The Daily Inter Lake
Cold, rainy, gusty.
In short, a perfect night for the pass-oriented Flathead football team.
The Braves, behind five touchdown passes from quarterback Brock Osweiler, downed visiting Missoula Hellgate (1-8) 47-20 at Legends Stadium.
The victory, Flathead's sixth in seven games, also clinched a Class AA playoff spot for the Braves (6-3).
Osweiler, 19-for-27 on the night for 295 yards and the five scores, now owns the Flathead single season record for touchdown passes with 26. The record he eclipsed was 23, set by Clay Lindsay in 2004.
"That's always been one of my career goals to be able to get some of those all-time passing records here at Flathead," Osweiler said.
"We've have some pretty prestigious quarterbacks come through this program. To be at the top of one of those lists is pretty special," he said.
"I'm happy for him," said Flathead head coach Russell McCarvel.
"We don't talk about it much or think about it much, but I think that record is really a testament to a lot of people -the o-line, the receivers and of course, Brock himself," the coach said.
"Certainly, Brock is the trigger man and he played really well," McCarvel added.
Mike Gallagher caught four of those touchdowns - 53, 18, six and eight yards. The fifth score was a 34 yard pass to senior tight end/linebacker Patrick Hergesheimer.
Gallagher had 10 catches on the night for 137 yards. That adds to his all-time Flathead receiving yardage record. He had caught 54 passes for 850 yards going into the evening.
The Braves accomplished just about anything they wanted from the beginning.
In addition to the passing game, Flathead had one of its better nights running the ball - 146 yards and two touchdowns on 26 attempts.
Junior running back Bryce Stacey had eight carries for 81 yards.
"You've got to give credit to Hellgate. They go out there and they put in the same amount of time we do and they work hard. But tonight everything went our way," Osweiler added.
"And in the past couple of games, we're in stride for where we need to be," he said.
"We're playing our best football and we need to be playing our best football," McCarvel agreed.
It took Flathead just seven plays - and just a little over 3 1/2 minutes - to score.
By the time the Brave offense had 10 plays in, it had 13 points. Flathead led 34-0 at the half.
"Minus the wind and the downpour we had … that's one of the things you have to deal with sometimes - playing in the elements - but we were still able to pass the ball and run the ball," Osweiler said.
"We made some adjustments on our routes in the wind in the first half, but we really stayed with what we were going to do," McCarvel said.
"We just shortened up our routes a little bit."
The only blip - if it could even be called that - on the evening was two fourth quarter Hellgate touchdowns.
"Sometimes it's hard to keep that emotion up when the score is what it is," McCarvel said.
"(The Flathead defense) dominated for three quarers," McCarvel said.
"It's pretty easy to let up when you're up so much, but you got to keep on playing," Hergesheimer said.
"We kind of quit playing there for a little bit. They scored a few on us. But I thought our defense played awesome in the first half - and our offense put up a lot of points."
Hellgate 0 0 7 13 - 20
Flathead 13 21 7 7 - 47
First Quarter
F - Mike Gallagher 53 pass from Brock Osweiler, (C.J. Manning kick) 8:23.
F - Bryce Stacey 39 run (kick failed), 4:56.
Second Quarter
F - Gallagher 18 pass from Osweiler (Manning kick), 8:32.
F - David Lau 30 run (Manning kick), 7:19.
F - Gallagher 6 pass from Osweiler (Manning kick), 1:14.
Third Quarter
F - Gallagher 8 pass from Osweiler (Manning kick), 9:31.
H - Dustin McCrudden 2 run (Darin Ridders kick), 0:00.
Fourth Quarter
H - Taylor Nordby 46 pass from McCrudden (pass failed), 7:19.
F - Patrick Hergesheimer 34 pass from Osweiler (kick failed), 4:08.
H - Nordby 27 pass from McCrudden (Ridders kick),:38.
F H
First downs 16 11
Rushes-yards 26-146 40-141
Passing yards 295 95
Comp-Att 19-29-295 6-11-95
Punts 4-120 4-113
Fumbles-lost 2-0 3-1
Penalties-yards 3-25 2-20
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING-Hellgate, Dustin McCrudden 11-44, Kale Leiby 3-5, Taylor Nordby 4-9, Chris LaVoie 22-83. Flathead, Brock Osweiler 3-minus 6, Bryce Stacey 8-81, Patrick Hergesheimer 2-13, Dustin Ozegavich 2-7, Michael Windham 2-10, Andrew Edsall5-4, David Lau 2-36.
PASSING-Hellgate, Dustin McCrudden 7-11-95. Flathead, Brock Osweiler 19-27-295, Michael Van Arondonk 0-2-0.
RECEIVING-Hellgate,Taylor Nordby 3-79, Chris LaVoie 1-1, Kale Leiby1-17, Jack Bartram 1-7, Dustin Hover 1-8. Flathead, Mike Gallagher 10-137, Travis Andrus 1-5, Kyle Van Eimeren 2-29, Kyle Houghtaling 1-40, Bryce Stacey 2-14, Patrick Hergesheimer 2-51, David Lau 1-19.