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Sports

De Smet Survives Gritty Oakville 35-21

Spartans take non-conference contest, gearing up for district play in two weeks.

De Smet quarterback Connor Harrison and his Spartans teammates were frustrated for most of the night. But thankfully for Harrison and De Smet, their defense and big contribution from stars such as Durron Neal and Latif Adams gave the team just enough juice to survive.

Harrison threw for a touchdown and ran for one and Adams scored punched in a pair of rushing touchdowns. The Spartan defenders then did their part to survive a gritty, physical Oakville Tiger squad for a 35-21 win Friday night.

"Our offense struggled all night long and it was really frustrating," Harrison said. "Give Oakville credit beause they really came after us but thankfully our defense stepped up when we needed it."

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De Smet (5-1) jumped on top midway through the first quarter when Harrison fired a 44-yard touchdown strike to Neal. That lead grew to 14-0 in the second quarter as Harrison scored on an 8-yard run.

On its next series, Oakville (3-3) responded as Moe LaGrand broke off right tackle and raced 75 yards for a touchdown.

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Three minutes later, De Smet was back in the red-zone again. This time, Lucas Nikolaisen finished off the Spartans drive with a 2-yard scoring run.

But just two series later, Oakville was still scratching at the Spartans as the Tigers defense came up with a big play of its own when Isaac Dozier scooped up and bolted 40 yards for a touchdown off a botched lateral making it 21-14 at the break.

"We told the kids coming in that we were going to have to make big plays and fight to have a chance and we did that early," Oakville coach Arlee Conners said. "Our guys came out playing hard and were not intimidated." Conners was ejected early fourth quarter for questioning an official's call made on the Oakville bench.

Adams scored his first touchdown of the game on the opening drive the third quarter on a 4-yard run for a 27-14 cushion. Oakville responded five minutes later when LaGrand scored his second TD of the night on a 4-yard run cutting the gap to 27-21.

An early fourth quarter 4-yard score by Adams (his second of the night) restored De Smet's 14-point 35-21 with 10:53 left."The offensive line did a gret job of giving us room to run and then Latif did a great job of finishing up the drive," Harrison said.

Then it was the Spartans defense that had to step up. The Tigers drove deep into De Smet territory with just over five minutes left. On fourth and seven, Oakville wuarterback Andy Oliver got stuffed by the heart of the De Smet defensive -ine and Oakville's last chance to come back was gone.

"Our defense played great all night long and really kept us in the game," DeSmet coach Pat Mahoney."We have some real good playmakers but tonight our defense really had to help us out and they did a great job."

"Our kids played hard and we just didn't make enough big plays tonight," Conners said. "But we feel good about the direction we're heading and we think we'lll see a team like this in the playoffs so we're hanging our hat on that."

De Smet will be back on the field for a Thursday night matchup against Miller Career Academy at Sumner High School.

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