Hudson rallies past Denver with big finish, 35-21 [Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa]

Oct. 19--DENVER -- Hudson scored 28 unanswered second-half points to rally for a 35-21 win over Denver Friday in a Class 1A non-district football game.

The Pirates (4-4) rushed for 418 yards and had scoring plays of 57, 55, 65 and 68 as they racked up 532 total yards against an injury depleted Cyclone squad.

"We really pounded it into their heads at halftime to play as team and have everyone do their job," Hudson coach Joe Brekke said of his halftime speech. "We stuck with it and had a lot of success."

The first half saw a lot of blunders on Hudson's part as Denver took a 14-7 halftime lead. The Pirates had two special teams miscues and they lost a fumble that the Cyclones (3-6) recovered in their own end zone for a touchback.

Denver's Brayden Neuendorf scored on a fourth-and-1 dive to make it 7-0 early in the first quarter after a 15-yard personal foul for roughing the punter extended the Cyclones' drive. Then, after a 4-yard Hudson punt, Neuendorf faked everybody out on option play for a 12-yard score that made it 14-0 with 2:10 left in the first quarter.

"We did some nice things, took advantage of their mistakes," Denver coach Rhett Barrett said of the first half. "But they found our youth in the second half. We had a freshman and a sophomore playing linebacker because of injuries, and they exploited our youth and we missed a few tackles, as well."

Cameron Wright got Hudson on the scoreboard with a 57-yard touchdown run late in the first half, but it looked like the Pirates were headed for more disaster in the second half when Denver scored on its opening drive as Mitchell Siech hauled in a 35-yard pass from Neuendorf to make it 21-7 with 10:31 left in the third quarter.

But it was all Hudson after that. Dylan Hassman hit Joe Hageman for a 55-yard touchdown pass on the Pirates' first second-half possession. After a quick three-and-out on Denver's part, Hassman took a quarterback keeper 65 yards to tie it 21-all with 3:56 remaining in the third.

Then Wright, who played only a handful of second-half plays with a nagging injury, took a handoff around right end, avoided a couple of tacklers and raced 68 yards to put Hudson up 27-21 just 51 seconds into the second half.

"We could have played him more, but we feel confident in a number of other guys and they all stepped up and did their jobs," Brekke said.

Wright finished the game with 208 yards on 12 carries. He had 140 on 11 in the first half and now has 1,013 yards for the season.

Hageman gave Hudson an insurance touchdown with 6:35 to go on a 13-yard run.

The Pirates now only need to beat West Fork next Friday to advance to the 1A playoffs.

"The coaches really got on us at halftime telling us we needed to execute," Hageman said. "The offensive line did a great job, the holes were there and I just hit them."

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