Warriors rip North Pole

FAIRBANKS — North Pole expected Wasilla Warriors senior Devon Teeling to be a punishing running back in Friday night’s homecoming and Railbelt Conference high school football game for the Patriots.

Teeling did his damage with a 293-yard performance on 38 carries, but the Patriots seemingly experienced more pain from the 12 penalties they accrued in the 43-29 loss, including seven encroachment infractions on defense.

North Pole’s first three penalties at Patriot Pride Field were encroachments, with the third one occurring before Teeling scored on a 1-yard run for his first of two touchdowns in the contest that clinched Wasilla’s first playoff berth since 1999 and eliminated North Pole from postseason contention.

“It hurts and our inexperience hurts,” Patriots head coach Richard Henert said following a somber postgame meeting with his team on the field.

The Patriots finished with 12 penalties for 63 yards compared to the Warriors’ six for 41.

“We made a lot of mistakes in a lot of our games,” Henert reflected, “but I don’t want to try to make it sound that way but it seems like it more of us weren’t making mistakes and we’re as good as the other team.

“We were making mistakes that are hard to come back from, but give all the credit to Wasilla for the win. We’ve played some teams, but it just seems like we’ve been a lot closer in games than the score would indicate a lot of times because of things (penalties) like that.”

The loss, besides dropping North Pole to 1-4 Railbelt and 2-5 overall, put a damper on quarterback Moo Rogers accomplishing a rare achievement in Alaska high school football. The 5-foot-8, 165-pound junior reached the 1,000-yard plateau in passing and rushing with one game left in the regular season for the Patriots.

“Moo is a tough kid and it’s been a pleasure blocking for him,” said Patriots senior right tackle Isaac Masters, who also plays at defensive tackle.

Rogers completed 15 of 29 passes for 218 yards to give him 1,210 yards through the air and he rushed 23 times for 121 yards to reach 1,043 for the season.

“The great thing about the way he did it was it was a total team thing,” Henert said. “He had enough receivers to spread the ball around to get the passing yards and he had the offensive line and enough running backs to keep the focus off him to get the rushing yards.”

Ray Johnson scored on a 4-yard run to give North Pole a 15-14 lead with 4:43 left in the second quarter.

Rogers accounted for three touchdowns for the Patriots. He scored on a 4-yard run to give North Pole an 8-7 lead with 3:37 left in the first quarter and his 9-yard bolt with 6:42 left in the third cut the Warriors lead to 28-22. He also connected with Anthony Gibson a 35-yard touchdown pass to bring North Pole within seven, 36-29, with 7:55 left in the fourth quarter.

Teeling, who also pushed Wasilla’s lead to 28-15 in the third with a 49-yard run, did more cutting against the Patriots than he did in the Warriors’ last visit to the Interior. Wasilla won 37-6 at Lathrop on Sept. 3, as Teeling rushed 32 times for 200 yards and two touchdowns, mostly with power runs up the middle.

A turf toe injury he sustained earlier this week led the 5-foot-10-inch, 205-pound senior to change his running style Friday.

“Instead of pushing off, I was just trying to cut back and not put weight on it (toe),” Teeling said.

One thing that didn’t change for him was the work of the Warriors’ offensive line.

“They did amazing. They did their blocking assignments perfectly every time,” Teeling said.

Wasilla head coach Kent Rilatos told his offensive linemen to just tie up the Patriots defensive linemen.

“We don’t have to dominate, we don’t have to move them down the field, we just have to tie,” he said. “We just have to tie with their guys and let Devon pick the holes and do the rest.”

The Warriors (4-1, 5-2) took advantage of the Patriots’ defense focusing on Teeling, as quarterback Ben Fielder threw four touchdown passes, with three going to Tyler Anderson (52 yards in the second quarter, 7 in the third and 48 yards in the fourth). Braydon Kuiper caught a 16-yard TD with 2:15 left in the second for a 21-15 lead for Wasilla.

Wasilla 43, North Pole 29

Friday, Patriot Pride Field

First Quarter:

Wasilla—Teeling1 run (Perry kick), 5:27.

North Pole—Rogers 4 run (Johnson pass from Rogers), 3:37.

Second Quarter:

Wasilla—Anderson 52 pass from Fielder (Perry kick), 8:07.

North Pole—Johnson 4 run (Gibson kick), 4:43.

Wasilla—Kuiper 16 pass from Fielder (Perry kick), 2:15.

Third Quarter:

Wasilla—Teeling 49 run (Perry kick), 10:50.

North Pole—Rogers 9 run (Gibson kick), 6:42.

Wasilla—Anderson 7 pass (Adair pass from Fielder), 3:23.

Fourth Quarter:

North Pole—Gibson 35 pass from Rogers (Gibson kick), 7:55.

Wasilla—Anderson 48 pass from Fielder (Perry kick), 5:13.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Wasilla: Teeling 38-293, Rilatos 4-10, Fielder 3-6. North Pole: Rogers 23-121, Johnson 7-54, Gibson 1-9, Snelling 1-(-6).

PASSING—Wasilla: Fielder 9-11-0-172. North Pole: Rogers 20-29-0-257.

RECEIVING—Wasilla: Anderson 4-117, Adair 2-17, Parks 1-18, Teeling 1-18, Kuiper 1-16. North Pole: Gibson 7-104, Duncan 7-56, McCoy 3-53, Snelling 1-26, Copeland 1-12, Johnson 1-6.