Click here to view all the images taken from the football game
Written by Katlyn Marotz, Sports Editor & Staff Writer, Photographs by Alejandro Comstock, Photographer/Illustrator/Podcaster/Video-grapher, Isabelle Schroeder, Photographer/Staff Writer, and Elly Herrick, Staff Writer/Photographer/Podcaster
As fluorescent stadium lights lit up deep purple and white jerseys on a field of washed out turf, the Indian Trail Hawks and Tremper Trojans varsity football teams faced off in a Southeast Conference game at Jaskwhich Stadium Oct. 23.
Supportive fans clanged cow bells and heavily stomped their feet against the cold metal bleachers, as the Hawk’s managed to pull off their first conference win with a final score of 26-20.
Even though IT’s defense remained strong, their offense struggled as they ran up the numbers in penalty flags, incomplete passes, and missed points, only managing to put up one extra point out of four touchdowns. Meanwhile, Tremper dealt with the same struggles, but only missed one extra point.
Indian Trail senior quarterback Argjent Ismaili ran in the first touchdown at 6:48 in the second quarter, followed by Tremper’s running back Xavier Goetzinger’s touchdown run, and then – IT’s highlight of the game – an interception by senior defensive back Kameron Lee who ran it into the opponent’s end zone through the buzzer to end the first half 12-6.
During the third quarter, the Trojans Goetzinger made a touchdown run. At the start of the fourth quarter, Ismaili ran in a touchdown at the snap, then a touchdown pass from Ismaili to running back Justice Lovelace, and Ismaili ran an extra 2 point conversion. Tremper got the last word with a touchdown run by Goetzinger and an extra point by Brooke Clements, with less than 4 minutes remaining, but it wasn’t enough.
The game came to an end with a pitch black sky, as the Hawks went into victory formation with 27.5 seconds left, while heading into their team huddle, clapping in celebration of their hard fought victory.
“Our team on both sides of the ball battled through a hard fought game for a win,” Hawks Coach Paul Hoffman said. “Offensively we tweaked a few things to allow us to get into a rhythm. The players took to it well, and we were able to find some rhythm & success. Defensively we have been solid all year and they continued to dig deep and find ways to get off the field.”
A re-match game between Indian Trail and Franklin takes place at 7 p.m., Friday, Oct. 30, at Jaskwhich Stadium. Franklin beat IT 28-6 during the last meeting, and are currently 3-0 for a SEC record. Tremper remains last in conference with a 0-4 record, while IT moved up with a 1-3 record.