The Norwalk football team secured a hard-fought and much-needed victory at Winterset on Friday night, outlasting the Huskies 17-8 in the Class 4A, District 6 opener for both teams. The game was heard live on the KNIA3 stream.
The Warriors made big plays in all three phases of the game to erase an early 8-0 deficit and snap a three-game losing skid, improving to 2-3 overall and dropping Winterset to 3-2.
With 5.4 seconds left in the first quarter, Norwalk was sparked by James Hatlevig’s 58-yard touchdown pass to Eli Robbins. The Warriors would later take a 10-8 halftime lead on Tavin Ferner’s booming 44-yard field goal as time expired. The second half was all about defense as Norwalk picked off three passes by Winterset quarterback Hunter Lyon. Defensive lineman Isaac Binder snagged a screen pass during the third quarter and Kadan Borcherding-Johnson added two interceptions in the final four minutes. The first one thwarted the Huskies’ best drive of the game and the second one set up Robbins’ game-clinching two-yard TD run.
Combined with two very strong quarters of football in last week’s overtime loss to ADM, Norwalk head coach Paul Patterson likes the progress that his team is making, but cautioned that there is still much work to be done. Patterson calls Friday’s effort a fantastic road win against a really good opponent.
“A win is great, and especially right now in this situation,” he said. “Walking in 1-3 and then being able to get the first district game under your belt with a win is awesome. However, 14 penalties last week, 10 penalties tonight; and the 10 penalties tonight were significant as far as what they did to us.”
Norwalk endured another rough start when a high punt snap resulted in a Winterset safety less than five minutes into the game. The resulting free kick set up the Huskies’ 50-yard scoring drive, capped by Lyon’s two-yard run. Winterset would not score again the rest of the night.
Unofficially, Hatlevig passed for 125 yards and Robbins had 75 receiving yards and 30 key rushing yards in the fourth quarter. Harrison Tripp had two sacks on defense and also converted a fake punt in the first half.
Norwalk is back at home next Friday, hosting Dallas Center-Grimes at 7:00 p.m.