Nikiski sophomore running back Rykker Riddall scored four touchdowns and senior linebacker Luke Johnson recovered a Thunder Mountain fumble with a minute to play to save the Bulldogs\u2019 28-21 win over the Falcons on Friday night in Juneau.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever giving up,\u201d Nikiski coach Ted Riddall said. \u201cWe played for 48 minutes and believed that everybody could get something done on the field. We needed everybody, it wasn\u2019t just one guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikiski\u2019s offensive line of Jon McCormick, Rueben Sepeda, L. Johnson, Ian Johnson, Kyle Rosado and Nick Braswell gave the backfield room to run.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wall is what we are counting on,\u201d Riddall said. \u201cThey are seniors across the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Peninsula Conference small school Bulldogs trailed 21-20 with 6:40 remaining in the game and used a 12-play drive to regain the lead over the medium division Southeast Conference Falcons.<\/p>\n
A three-yard run by Riddall began the drive, quarterback Dennis Anderson threw 15 yards to Hunter Holloway, Corn Cooper picked up four yards and Anderson found Nathan Carstens for four more.<\/p>\n
A key pass interference call on the Falcons on a second-and-15 put the ball on the Falcons\u2019 15-yard line and Anderson, Cooper and Riddall each carried the ball closer to the end zone, with Anderson connecting on a nine-yard pass to Riddall for the go-ahead touchdown. Cooper ran in a two-point conversion for the 28-21 lead.<\/p>\n
The Falcons had the ball with 1:47 left to play and a chance to secure a final home game win on senior night.<\/p>\n
TMHS quarterback Garth Tupou just missed the fingertips of Mahina Toutaiolepo on a long first pass. Two Falcons\u2019 penalties brought a second-and-25 from their own 16-yard line. Junior Riley Olsen got six yards back but TMHS fumbled on the next play and Nikiski\u2019s Johnson came away with the pigskin.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs\u2019 Anderson took a knee on successive plays to let the game clock run out for the win.<\/p>\n
Nikiski\u2019s R. Riddall rushed for two touchdowns in the first quarter, caught one in the third and the final scoring pass in the fourth. <\/p>\n
The Bulldogs\u2019 senior co-captain Jon McCormick had six tackles and one fumble recovery before leaving the game with an injury in the first half. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an unfortunate injury,\u201d Coach Riddall said. \u201cHe is the captain of the offensive line. His knee is hurting pretty good but hopefully that is something we can get him back from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikiski took the opening possession of the game eight plays from their own 32-yard line to score on a seven-yard grind from Riddall. <\/p>\n
Both teams went four-and-out on their next possessions and the Falcons fumbled the ball away with Nikiski\u2019s L. Johnson securing the recovery.<\/p>\n
Nikiski\u2019s next drive was six plays, with two TMHS penalties, capped off by Riddall\u2019s 11-yard run.<\/p>\n
Thunder Mountain\u2019s Ivan Williams recovered a fumble at 8:02 remaining in the second quarter and the Falcons needed just two plays to score. Q\u2019on Bear-Clark, who had a game-high 172 yards rushing, scrambled 32 yards and Ma\u2019ake Ma\u2019ake finished the series with an 11-yard run to cut the lead to 14-6. Riley Olsen\u2019s then made the extra point.<\/p>\n
Nikiski answered with 7:48 remaining before the half, using a 12-play drive capped off by Dylan Broussard taking an Anderson handoff and passing to Riddall for a 20-7 advantage.<\/p>\n
The Falcons took the opening kickoff of the second half from their own 35 and marched 10-plays for the score, with Tupou keeping the ball on a quarterback plunge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we lost McCormick at linebacker, they were running right there,\u201d Riddall said. \u201cI kept telling the team that we had to make one play, just one play at a time. Just stop them one more drive. We are a pretty conditioned team and we believe that we are in it until the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikiski churned out three first downs but sputtered out on their next possession and both teams punted before the Falcons ran 10 plays from their own 38-yard line capped off by a Tupou pass to Toutaiolepo to tie the score at 20-20 in the third quarter. Olsen kicked the extra point for the Falcons\u2019 only lead at 21-20.<\/p>\n
This was the final home game for TMHS seniors Ma\u2019ake, Alex Lewis, Bear-Clark, Chase Becker, Elvis Young, Sam Bluett, Lutini Tupou, Merced Duran, Sejin Oh, Mason Kullander, Jase Lippert, Andrew Ringle, Remington Burrell, Meki Sikione, and Jonas Wahl and cheerleaders Lauren Hatch, Taylor Manheimer and Sarah Penrose.<\/p>\n
\nPlayoff picture<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year the Bulldogs fell in the ASAA small school state championship game to Eielson 55-51.<\/p>\n This season Nikiski, ranked 17th overall in the state, has also beaten Aurora Conference small school Barrow 42-12, AC small school Houston 34-0, and Peninsula Conference small schools Homer 50-18 and Voznesenka 52-0; and lost to AC small school Eielson 34-7 and Northern Lights Conference medium school Kodiak 25-15.<\/p>\n Thunder Mountain, ranked 19th in the state, has beaten Canada\u2019s Marriott 43-0, SEC medium school Ketchikan 58-0 and PC small school Homer 34-30; and also lost to AC small school Eielson 43-0, SEC medium school North Pole 41-20 and Northern Railbelt large school West Valley 26-9.<\/p>\n Juneau-Douglas High School is ranked 18th in the state with wins over Canada\u2019s Boyd 31-14, NRB large school West Valley 16-13, AC small school Barrow 26-20 and SEC medium school Ketchikan 48-30; and losses to SEC medium school North Pole 39-0 and NLC medium school Kodiak 28-20.<\/p>\n Next weekend\u2019s Glacier Bowl between JDHS and TMHS at Adair Kennedy Field will send the winner to the medium school state playoffs against the NLC No. 1 seed and the loser to the locker room. North Pole is the SEC No. 1 seed and will play the NLC No. 2 seed. Soldotna and Kenai both have clinched NLC playoff berths and play their final game Oct. 3 to determine who will be the No. 1 seed.<\/p>\n Current rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n Soldotna (currently on a 35-game win streak) defeated North Pole 57-28 for the medium school state championship last season. JDHS fell to SOHI in the semi\u2019s 44-6 and North Pole beat Kenai 47-14.<\/p>\n As of last week Anchorage\u2019s Bartlett High School, a Cook Inlet Conference large school, is ranked first overall in the state with NLC medium school Soldotna second, CIC large school Chugiak third, CIC large school Dimond fourth, CIC large school West fifth, CIC large school East sixth, Northern Railbelt large school Colony seventh, NLC medium school Kenai eighth, NRB large school Lathrop ninth and AC small school Eielson 10th. Last season South Anchorage defeated West 20-6 for the large school title.<\/p>\n How they scored<\/strong><\/p>\n NIKISKI 14\/6\/0\/8<\/p>\n TMHS 0\/7\/7\/7<\/p>\n 1st Quarter<\/strong><\/p>\n Nikiski \u2013 8:51 Riddall 7-yard rush (Cooper 2-pt run) <\/p>\n Nikiski \u2013 1:28 Riddall 11 yard rush (2-pt failed) <\/p>\n 2nd Quarter<\/strong><\/p>\n TMHS \u2013 7:48 Ma\u2019ake 11-yard rush (Olsen kick) <\/p>\n Nikiski \u2013 2:14 Broussard 12-yard pass to Riddall (2-pt failed)<\/p>\n 3rd Quarter<\/strong><\/p>\n TMHS \u2013 7:05 Tupou 1-yard rush (Olsen kick) <\/p>\n 4th Quarter<\/strong><\/p>\n TMHS \u2013 6:40 Tupou 15-yard pass to Toutaiolepo (Olsen kick) <\/p>\n Nikiski \u2013 1:52 Anderson 9-yard pass to Riddall (Cooper 2-pt run) <\/p>\n Individual stats<\/strong><\/p>\n RUSHING \u2013 Nikiski: R. Riddall 18-102 (2 TD), C. Cooper 7-27, D. Broussard 1-2, D. Anderson 2-2, M. Minium 1(-7); TMHS: Q. Bear-Clark 25-172, M. Ma\u2019ake 4-24 (1 TD), G. Tupou 4-12 (1 TD), R. Olsen 2-11, S. Olmstead 1-6, M. Toutaiolepo 1-5.<\/p>\n PASSING \u2013 Nikiski: D. Anderson 5-7-57 (1 TD), D. Broussard 1-1-12 (1 TD); TMHS: G. Tupou 4-7-30 (1 TD).<\/p>\n RECEIVING \u2013 Nikiski: R. Riddall 2-21 (2 TD), H. Holloway 2-22, I. Johnson 1-19, N. Carstens 1-7; TMHS: M. Toutaiolepo 3-35 (1 TD)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nikiski sophomore running back Rykker Riddall scored four touchdowns and senior linebacker Luke Johnson recovered a Thunder Mountain fumble with a minute to play to save the Bulldogs\u2019 28-21 win over the Falcons on Friday night in Juneau. \u201cNever giving up,\u201d Nikiski coach Ted Riddall said. \u201cWe played for 48 minutes and believed that everybody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":26382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26381"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}