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QuickTake:
South Eugene, hobbled by injuries, kept the crosstown rivalry game close before the Highlanders pulled away.
The South Eugene Axe, having not won a game in two years, fought crosstown rival North Eugene with everything it had for more than half the game Friday night, Sept 12, at South’s Morrow Field.
But the Highlanders (1-0, 2-1) proved too much to handle in the second half after South (0-1, 0-2) lost 10 of its 28 players to injuries and went on to win the contest, 58-18, on a picturesque late-summer night in the first Midwestern League game for both squads.
“I was really happy with the guys,” North’s head coach Rick Raish said. “We played really hard together, especially in the second half. South put up a really good fight. They’re down in numbers, but they didn’t quit.”
Senior wideout Solger Pescosolido scored three touchdowns for the Highlanders and junior wideout Aiden Hibler scored two, including one on an 86-yard touchdown return in the third quarter to give North the lead for good, 23-18.
“I think at halftime, we had a pretty good talk,” Pescosolido said. “We were kind of shooting ourselves in our own foot, with all the penalties and stuff, and I think we tightened it up.”
North scored first on the night, on a Pescosolido’s 48-yard end-around down the right sideline on the Highlander’s first series.
Junior kicker Mylee Johannsen, who was eight-for-eight on point-after touchdown kicks on the night, gave North the 7-0 lead with 9:55 left in the quarter.
But South came right back, senior running back Henry Fausett bulldozing his way for yardage to set up a 31-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Felix Olietti to wideout Jackson Ingram down the right sideline, the 6-foot-5 Ingram leaping for the catch and running it in.
North blocked South’s PAT attempt to maintain a 7-6 lead.
Ingram was so excited to score the Axe’s first touchdown of the season — after South was blanked 42-0 in its road opener at Milwaukie last week — that he dunked the ball over the goal post, resulting in a 15-yard penalty on the ensuing kickoff.
North got a safety late in the quarter, after South muffled a bad snap, taking a 9-6 lead with 42 seconds left in the quarter.
Fausett gave the Axe its first lead of the game on a 6-yard run, set up by Olietti’s 14-yard pass over the middle to Ingram, with 8:54 left in the second quarter. South went for two but Olietti’s pass was incomplete, leaving the score 12-9 South.
But Pescosolido scored again for North on a 29-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dae Dae Ireland down the left sideline. Johannsen’s kick made it 16-12 North at the half.
South Eugene grabs second-half lead
The Axe came out strong in the third quarter as junior running back Daniel Jetty ran 73 yards for a touchdown, giving South an 18-16 lead after the PAT was blocked by North.
Hibler’s kickoff return for six came next and then Pescosolido’s 16-yard touchdown run on another end-around made it 30-18 North with 8:09 left in the third quarter.
South was now playing with backup quarterback Michael Shields after Olietti was unable to go in the second half and Fausett and Ingram also left the game with injuries in the third quarter.
Hibler scored another touchdown on a 40-yard pass from Ireland for a 37-18 lead with 4:16 to go in the quarter, and senior running back Riley Whitwood scored on a 4-yard run with 47 seconds left in the quarter for a 44-18 lead.
“We’ve got to build off this and make it a steppingstone of what we can be,” Whitwood said.
North was coming off a 48-21 loss to Corvallis, now the state’s top-ranked 5A team after defeating Crescent Valley Friday to start 2-0, last week.
“We showed how explosive our offense can be,” Whitwood said. “You can count how many of our guys got touchdowns today. I think almost our entire offensive side got at least one touchdown at (every) skill position.”
Junior running back Josiah Corsini scored on a 5-yard run with 5:01 left in the game for a 51-18 lead, and sophomore Drake Anderson scored on a 22-yard run with 2:30 left to finish off the scoring.
For South, it was another tough loss in a losing streak that’s now at 17 games. The Axe’s last win came on Sept. 14, 2023, a 28-25 win over a Willamette team that would finish 0-9 that season.
“It was tough, but we’ve got to stack little victories,” said South senior Gus Nelson, who had a first-quarter interception for the Axe.
“We had a lot of little victories in the game, so we’ve just got to build on those and hopefully keep the trajectory we had (in the first half).”
South Eugene’s next scheduled game is Sept. 26 against Crescent Valley. North heads to Eagle Point Sept. 19 for a 7 p.m. kickoff.
Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified South Eugene in a subhead.
