Mounders give up late lead in first loss to Panthers

The Elk Mound football team recorded their first loss of the season by a score of 24-23 when they gave up a fourth quarter lead against the Durand Panthers in Durand Oct. 9. The loss gives the Mounders a 4-1 conference record with their final game at home this Friday night against the 5-0 Spring Valley Cardinals. A win by the Mounders would allow them to share the conference title with the Cardinals.

Elk Mound scored first at Durand with Hunter Adleman running for a 31 yard touchdown and Dane Lew booting the extra point kick exactly halfway through the first quarter for a 7-0 lead. At the 6:18 mark of the second quarter, the Panthers’ Travis Bauer scored on a four yard run then ran in the two point conversion to put Durand up 8-7 at the half.

Elk Mound running back Noah Zurbuchen, who leads the conference in rushing but missed almost all of the game a week ago with a leg injury, appeared to be in fine form as he put his team up on a two yard run late in the third quarter. Zurbuchen added the two point conversion and it was 15-8 heading into the fourth quarter.

Durand took back the lead at 16-15 on a 15 yard run by Josh Biesterveld and a two point pass to Brett Schloffer from Bauer at the 10:50 mark, but the Mounders’ Tyler Sahm regained it on a four yard blast and added the two point run to make it 23-16 with 4:14 left in the game. On Durand’s next possession, they pulled off a double pass for a long gain which set up Biesterveld for a one yard plunge, and electing to go for the two points and the lead, Bauer found the endzone with 2:23 left.

Although the Mounders have come from behind late in the game a few times this year, they couldn’t put a scoring drive together this time in the last two minutes, resulting in the one point loss.

“This was a tough loss for our boys,” coach Dave Lew said. “Durand was a physical team and I told our boys we have to have a short memory and be ready to play Spring Valley this Friday for the conference championship,” he added.

Zurbuchen was injured late in the fourth quarter but still managed to rush for 119 yards on 19 carries. Adleman collected 66 yards on nine attempts while Lew ran for 27 yards on three tries. Lew completed 2 of 6 passes for 38 yards with one pass to Zurbuchen for 21 yards and another to Alex Hollister for 17 yards. Defensively, Lew was involved with 12 tackles and forced a Panther fumble which was recovered by Hollister while Adleman collected six tackles, Hollister, Jordan VanSchoonhoven, Ben Mack and Colin Svee all had five tackles and Hunter Johnson and Cole Tyman finished with four and were credited with a half-sack.