The Washington Demon football team did everything right against Pella, but sometimes the hardest team to beat is yourself. The Demons came into the game last night 1-0 after a 30-0 win over a 2A school to play 3A Pella, and led the whole game, but numerous false starts and illegal shifts caused the Demons to go backward too many times, and they dropped the game 16-10 in overtime.
The Demons and Dutch both struggled out of the gate, with the Demons going through three different centers. Their first drive had every snap going over the head of quarterback Daryn Seibelius. Pella had their own problems with their first snap going over the head of Josh De Ward for a loss of 12. In the second set of downs for the Demons weren’t much better, with the first snap skittering across the ground and recovered by Pella deep in the Washington zone, which resulted in the first points in the game off the field goal by Seth Johnson from 43 yards out.
Demon head coach Randy Schrader talked about the bad snaps after the game.
“We couldn’t get the snap, I think the first five snaps, four flew over their head and two came back tumbling, so we had our third string center in there,” Schrader said. “We had some motion penalties out there because Austin Twinam who was the center, he is a number three guy, and he just wasn’t snapping the ball fast enough, and I don’t know how many procedure penalties we had, 3, 4, 5, all at critical times, and it caused us some issues.”
The Demons finally got the offense going toward the end of the first quarter, and started the second quarter with the ball on the Pella 15, and it was Seibelius who dropped back and threw a high ball to the left to Alan Sanchez for the Washington touchdown to put them up 7-3. Seibelius threw 13 times in the game completing eight of them for 84 yards and a touchdown.
Schrader says he likes to run, but he trust Seibelius in his game decision and he is a good athletic player.
“He’s a good athlete, big kid, runs well, has a nice arm and they were giving us things,” Schrader said. “We weren’t protecting well up front, which look at the number of sacks and the lack of time he had to throw the football. [Seibelius] is a good kid, if we give him time to do some things, and we can make the mismatches, he can put the ball on the money and do some things.”
Washington had their chances throughout the game to score again, but could only manage a 23 yard field goal from Mason Quigley. The wheels came off for the Demons after a snap for the punt went over Kyle Roder’s head and Pella took over on the Washington eight yard line, and would score on a pass to Daniel Langenfeld to tie the game 10-10.
With under two minutes in the game the Demons had a fourth down and long, after an Alan Sanchez interception got them the ball back, and decided to fake the punt with Roder who broke two tackles and forced his way to a first down, which put the Demons inside the 20 with their offense, but the Pella defense and penalties had the Demons moving backward and put Quigley on the right hash for a game winning 38 yard field goal that he missed just left.
In overtime it was the Demons who took over first, but again the Pella defense and penalties pushed the Demons backward and put Quigley 37 yards out for a field goal, which was just left.
Pella ran just two plays to make it to pay dirt, completing the comeback and wining the game 16-10 in overtime.
The Demons leading rusher was Tanner Knupp. He went 72 yards on 10 attempts.
The 1- 1 Demons will take on Fairfield next week to start District play.