Hanson headed to DakotaDome again

ALEXANDRIA — Through all the touchdowns and long-yardage plays between the Avon and Hanson High School football teams on Saturday, the turning point came on a defensive stop in the second quarter.

Both teams scored on their first two drives, but Hanson came up with the first stop, and senior Pierce Smith rushed for more than 300 yards and six touchdowns in a 46-30 Class 9A semifinal victory that sends the Beavers to the DakotaDome for the third consecutive season.

Hanson (10-1) plays Harding County (11-0) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday looking for a third title in as many years.

“It’s great — to do it against a team like Avon ...” Smith said. “That team improved and this shows how much we’ve improved.”

Avon struck first when Derek Cihak took the third play from scrimmage 55 yards for a TD. Hanson fired back by feeding Smith, who had four carries on a five-play drive that was capped by his 20-yard score.

Big plays continued the rest of the first quarter as Avon’s Duffy Ducheneaux scampered 50 yards for a score, and Smith, again, answered by rumbling up the middle for an 82-yard TD run. He finished with 30 carries for 301 yards and six TDs. In a win over Tri-State in the quarterfinals last Monday, Smith had 283 yards and five TDs.

“He’s a big, strong kid who runs hard,” Avon coach Tom Culver said of Smith. “He’s very patient. He waits for the holes and hits them pretty hard.”

Tied at 16, Avon drove the ball down the field with the help of a 28-yard run from Cihak. However, Hanson’s defense tightened the reins and on fourth-and-10 from Hanson’s 31-yard line, Avon quarterback Nick Poppe found Cihak on a pass that was stopped for no gain to turn the ball over on downs. Hanson turned the stop into a 15-play, 69-yard drive that ended in a Smith 3-yard TD.

“They’re coming off hard, we’re coming off hard — it’s Avon versus Hanson,” Smith said. “That’s what it was. The first team to come up big on defense was going to win the game, and that’s what we did.”

Hanson took its 24-16 lead into halftime and got another two scores from Smith in the third quarter. He also scored in the fourth when Avon’s offense finally got back into rhythm after scoreless second and third quarters.

Cihak had a 33-yard TD run to open the fourth and the Pirates defense got a stop trailing by two scores, but the offense stalled when Poppe’s pass on third down fell incomplete, forcing Avon to punt.

“I thought if we could break one then, then maybe they tense up and turn it over,” Culver said. “We couldn’t make a play for the first down. That was a pretty big point in the game.”

Cihak rushed for 196 yards on 19 carries in his final prep game. Avon had 354 yards of offense including 343 on the ground. However, the Pirates couldn’t stop Hanson’s methodical offense, which went for 473 yards on the ground for a total of 543 yards of offense.

Avon ends its season at 9-2 and has just four losses in four years — all to Hanson.

First Quarter

A: Derek Cihak 55 run (Duffy Ducheneaux run)

H: Pierce Smith 20 TD (P. Smith run)

A: Ducheneaux 50 run (Chance Roth from Nick Poppe)

H: P. Smith 82 run (Reid Smith run)

Second Quarter

H: P. Smith 3 run (Andrew Gross run)

Third Quarter

H: P. Smith 8 run (R. Smith run)

H: P. Smith 6 run (run failed)

Fourth Quarter

A: Cihak 33 run (run failed)

H: P. Smith 3 run (Tyson Tuttle run)

A: Chance Roth 13 pass from Nick Poppe (Luke VanGerpen pass from Poppe)

Tags: high school football, our towns, sports, football, alexandria, avon