by Thomas Spencer
If there were any doubts about the prowess of the Florence Falcons defense, they can be put to rest after Saturday’s playoff matchup against the Cut Bank Wolves. The Falcons shut out their opponents 37-0 on an ideal Saturday afternoon.
Although they didn’t start off the game the way they would have liked to, the Falcons gained their composure and dealt with the early setbacks in the first quarter. “We grabbed that adversity and embraced it a little and said ‘okay, we gotta get back to playing our game,’” said head coach Pat Duchien after the game. Both the Wolves and Falcons were scoreless in the first quarter.
Eventually, quarterback Patrick Duchien broke a huge 80-yard run to put the Falcons up in the second quarter. That score was followed by two more touchdown passes and a safety from defensive end Colton Rice.
Duchien and the Falcon offense were able to spread the ball to many different offensive weapons throughout the second and third quarters. “Our identity is to get the ball to all the different athletes that we are blessed to have,” said coach Duchien. “When you have six guys out there that can get the ball at any given time you know instead of just looking and forcing stuff you gotta just start dispersing it and trying not to make things up.”
And the box score from this match-up exemplifies this comment from the Falcon head coach. Quarterback Duchien connected with three different receivers for scores.
Reflecting on their win after the game, the Falcon quarterback commented on how happy he was to be surrounded by so many good athletes and echoed that same mantra of 1-0 this week.
“Throughout each week we just focus on the team we have next,” said the coach. “We started off slow this game and last year against Conrad. I think we were overlooking them and it was a very close game until the end so we can’t do that anymore. We just have to focus on the game ahead and be able to win that game first.”
Despite the overwhelming victory, the Falcons did have a challenging task of containing a couple of solid runners in the Cut Bank backfield.
“They have a really good running game,” said Duchien. “They are big and they are tough but we get that good edge pressure from our d-ends and it can free up our backers Ethan Abbot you know taking the double team constantly it just frees up our guys in space.” The Falcon defensive backs placed constant pressure in the Wolves backfield.
After this convincing victory, this squad will face off against the Columbus Cougars next week in a match-up you will not want to miss. Kick-off time is 1 p.m. on Saturday at Florence.