Broncos football hangs on to beat DeSales

SPOKANE - Connor O'Neill carried the rock 24 times for 107 yards and scored two touchdowns to lead Lind-Ritzville-Sprague (LRS) to a 21-14 win over DeSales in the quarterfinal round of 2B State Championships at Gonzaga Prep High School Saturday.

"I thought the guys played gutty," coach Greg Whitmore said. "We hadn't played against a team that could pass like DeSales so were a bit tentative. We gave up the first points of the first quarter all year, but the guys responded well, played hard and came out with the win."

The Fighting Irish got on the board first on a 25-yard pass from Jeremiah Cox to Kyler Pommerening (Ryan Baumgart kick) to take an early 7-0 lead.

It was the only score in the first 12 minutes of action.

A 1-yard second quarter run by O'Neill (Matt Leffel kick) tied the game 7-7, and closed out the first half scoring.

O'Neill's second TD of the game; a 3-yard dash (Leffel kick) gave LRS its first lead of the contest, 14-7 as the third quarter game to an end.

Quarterback Dylan Hartz hooked up with Ryan Whitmore for a 14-yard TD (Leffel kick) to push the score to 21-7 a minute and 10 seconds into the fourth quarter of play to give the Broncos some breathing room.

DeSales answered back on its next possession less than 30 second later on a 51-yard pitch and catch from from Cox to Pommerening to close the gap to 21-14.

"Normally, a 14-point lead with the way our defense has played all year would be good enough, but not against a team like DeSales," Whitmore said. "They took advantage of a miss-match on one of our guys ... Jacob Saetre who hadn't gotten a lot of playing time this year. But he redeemed himself later with an interception at the 4-yard line to keep DeSales out of the end zone and possibly tying the score or taking the lead."

Neither team scored in the last 10 minutes of the game and the Broncos came away with a seven point win.

O'Neil led the ground and pound attack for LRS with 107 yards. Cort Ruzicka added 83 yards on 11 carries. Hartz completed seven of 12 passes for 74 yards.

The win over the Fighting Irish sets up a semifinal game between the Broncos and the Waitsburg-Prescott Cardinals Saturday at 2 p.m. at Lampson Field in Kennewick.

"We lost to Waitsburg in the quarterfinals last year and they went on to win the state championship," Whitmore said. "We are looking forward to the game ... need to get healed up .. but we'll be ready to play."