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SEU silences TMB in 2nd half

By Travis Rosenau 4 min read

SLEEPY EYE -- After Tracy-Milroy-Balaton was able to make some noise in the first half of Friday night's Mid-South District, Purple Subdistrict football game, Sleepy Eye United made it a quiet second half for the Panthers.

With 33 unanswered points in that second half, SEU was able to run away with a 40-28 victory at Sleepy Eye High School for its fourth consecutive win.

SEU started the game slow offensively with penalties and turnovers that helped TMB jump out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

"Started off shooting ourselves in the foot with some penalties," SEU head coach Joe Hoffmann said. "We cleaned that up and then it was -- our guys just believe in what we do. Sometimes you're gonna get stuffed, but then if we keep working the way our guys work, good things are gonna happen."

After beating Murray County Central last week at Sleepy Eye St. Marys' Homecoming, SEU's win over TMB came on Sleepy Eye High School's Homecoming.

Much like in the win over TMB where Merrick Mathiowetz had a three-touchdown performance, Mathiowetz did it again against TMB with five carries for 74 yards and three touchdowns.

Keeyan Netzke also had 22 carries for 105 yards and three TDs to help lead SEU by TMB, while Gavin Fischer had seven carries for 66 yards. Landry Folkens completed 4 of 11 passes for 96 yards and two interceptions, with two completions to Carson Uecker, a 13-yard completion to Mathiowetz and a 5-yard completion to Adam Braulick, who also kicked four PATs.

The SEU defense got interceptions from Jony Flores, Uecker and Brayden Heiderscheidt, who also blocked a punt.

Nick Tauer led SEU in total tackles with 14 on the night.

"We started out a little bit slow, but they played tough and we just gotta stay in it," Tauer said. "It's a long ball game, we've just got to not tear each other down, keep each other up and keep playing hard. Second half we came back strong, we changed a little bit on the defense, but other than that, we just had to get hyped and get the momentum moving."

Riley Voigt had eight total tackles, Davin Suess had seven total tackles and Netzke had seven total tackles. Kaden Braun added three tackles, a sack and two tackles for a loss.

Jackson Kruse completed 11 of 23 passes for 87 yards, a touchdown to Emery Xiong and three interceptions for the Panthers, and he also had three big TD runs. His first TD run went for 39 yards and came after his teammate Aiden Sanow intercepted a pass and and took it across midfield. A 10-yard TD run by Mathiowetz early in the second quarter got SEU a little confidence back, but TMB took it back with a 50-yard TD keeper by Kruse.

In the second half, however, SEU moved the chains over and over and over again. A catch and run of 61 yards by Uecker helped set up a 7-yard TD run by Netzke to have SEU down 20-13.

After forcing a turnover on downs, Mathiowetz was called on again and broke loose for a 61-yard TD to tie the game at 20-all after the PAT. Mathiowetz scored again on a 3-yard run to give SEU its first lead of the game and Netzke scored the next two TDs in the fourth quarter for a 40-20 SEU lead.

"It's matter of trusting our o-line and just our running backs in general," SEU guard Eli Hoffmann said. "We've just always got to believe that if it's not working, we'd physically beat them down until it is working."

Eli Hoffmann also added three tackles from the defensive line.

Kruse was able to get TMB on the board once more in the closing seconds on a 24-yard TD run.

Tauer, who also helped aid the run game on the o-line said he was happy with how he played at middle linebacker and also with how his teammates around him stepped up.

"Overall on defense I was pretty happy," Tauer said. "Kind of stopped the run up the middle and then we've got some pretty good outside, contain guys and good tacklers. Once you start to shut down the inside and outside, they've got to pick and choose what they want to do."

After improving to 4-1 on the year, Eli Hoffmann sees continued success in SEU's future.

"I absolutely love this group of guys and I think we have something special here," he said.

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