Lions advance to semifinals

Dalton Williams scores 4 touchdowns as Eureka bounces Conrad, 32-14

The Daily Inter Lake

EUREKA - The Conrad Cowboys came out firing in Saturday's Class B quarterfinal football match against the Eureka Lions and took a 6-0 lead in the first three minutes.

But Eureka fired right back and scored 25 unanswered points enroute to a 32-14 playoff victory. The Lions (8-1) face Huntley Project (10-0) next Saturday in Worden.

"We're excited," Eureka coach Ed Newell said afterwards. "We're going to enjoy this the rest of the day and get back to work on Monday."

Lion's running back Dalton Williams uncorked 168 yards of rushing and scored four touchdowns, including a red zone punch-in from the one yard line with 37 second left in the half to make the game 19-6.

As a team, the Lions racked up 364 yards of total offense and stifled the Cowboys running game. Miles City's Eric Norby, who scored four touchdowns last week against Colstrip, was kept to 54 rushing yards and zero touchdowns.

After the game, Newell praised his team for stepping up when needed and creating opportunities on both sides of the field.

"(Williams) had a great game but a lot of that credit goes to those guys up front in the trenches," Newell said. "Everybody played a key role."

Eureka's Chad Price finished the game with 149 rushing yards and quarterback Colin Gillard completed two passes for 42 yards and snuck around the defense for a one yard touchdown in the third quarter.

On the defensive end, the Lions got another big game from Ben Dechart, who made 23 tackles in the game, including four for loss of yardage.

"It was just a huge game again by him," Newell said.

Safety Jesse Thomson also had a big game defensively, recording 14 tackles.

Conrad's Brandon Philips scored the game's first touchdown on a 34-yard run in the first three minutes. The Cowboys led 6-0 after missing the two-point conversion, but the Lions got the ball and marched down the field in three and a half minutes. Williams broke away from the pack on a hand off and ran 15 yards for the touchdown. In the second quarter, Williams found his footing in the endzone twice in 10 minutes, scoring on 1 yard runs.

Huntley Project defeated Glasgow 42-10 on Saturday and will host the Lions on November 15 in the semifinals.

Conrad 6 0 0 8 - 14

Eureka 7 12 6 7 - 32

1st Quarter

C - Brandon Philips 34 run (run failed) 9:37

E - Dalton Williams 15 run (Chad Price kick) 6:03

2nd Quarter

E - Williams 1 run (kick failed) 9:47

E - Williams 1 run (pass failed) 0:37

3rd Quarter

E - Colin Gillard 1 run (run failed) 3:47

4th Quarter

C - Nate Gage 5 pass from Josiah Moerkerke (Moerkerke pass) 6:39

E - Williams 5 run (Price kick) 3:38

Conrad Eureka

First downs - 7 14

Rushing-yards - 32-115 60-322

Comp-Att-Int - 13-15-0 2-8-0

Passing yards - 113 42

Fumbles-lost - 3-2 3-1

Penalties-yards 6-44 4-20

Individual statistics

Rushing - Conrad, Eric Norby 12-54, Moerkerke 12-16, Brandon Philips 4-42; Eureka, Williams 26-168, Price 25-149, Gillard 8-6

Passing (com/att/yds/int/td) - Conrad, Moerkerke 13-15-113-0-1; Eureka, Gillard 2-8-42-0-0

Receiving - Conrad, Gage 3-68, Philips 3-27, Riley Styren 4-10, Martin 1-7; Eureka Price 1-33, Taylor Vaughn 1-9