WARREN — The big Week 6 Six Rivers matchup featuring two Top 10 teams was expected to be exciting, but not many could have predicted a first quarter played as Madden 23’s Arcade Rookie difficulty mode. As in, five combined touchdowns in the first 16 plays. 

“We knew they were capable of hitting on quick, explosive plays,” Black Hawk-Warren coach Desie Breadon said after No. 9 River Ridge (6-0) overwhelmed No. 4 BHW 50-26 on Sept. 23. “We can’t fall asleep on stuff — you have to be really good with your assignments. You can’t let them go. It’s got to be done how we practice it all week. You can’t all of a sudden just take the wrong angle.”

The Timberwolves took advantage of the Warriors by both deception in offensive formation, and picking on the inexperience of some BHW defenders. On the game’s second play, RR QB Matthew Nies threw a bubble pass on the outside to Braden Crubel, who then hit the sideline and outran the Warriors 61 yards to the pylon. 

BHW showed it was ready to rumble on its following possession, steadily marching into Timberwolves territory on five plays, only for an option pitch to hit the turf and be lost to the pouncing T-Wolves defense. On the very next snap, Nies hit Aidan Gage on a wide-open fly route up the seem for an easy 62-yard score.

“We just had bad communication out there. We’ve got to communicate better — that’s a big part of our game,” 2-way starting Warren senior Reed McNutt said. “We can’t play well if we don’t talk.”

The Warriors have a mix of really young and really old and experienced players. Oftentimes after a big play, fingers were being pointed and voices raised in the huddle, something the coaching staff addressed after the game.

“We’ve got to change something. We can’t be doing the same stuff we’ve been doing. We have to work as a team,” McNutt said. “Us captains have to more vocal as well — not just the other players. Our captains have been a little down, too, and we have to communicate more and hype everyone up more.”

The Warriors, trailing 13-0 and on their heels, answered back. The next drive lasted five snaps and covered 65 yards, with Lucas Milz muscling in from five yards away. 

“That was a very important score. We have to get down the field — this sitting and arguing stuff can’t happen. We have to keep pushing the ball,” McNutt said.

River Ridge wasted little time getting back up by two scores though, as Crubel went 61 yards on a reverse run for yet another score. Four plays of offense, 188 yards, three touchdowns. The Timberwolves were out for blood.

Not to be shown up, Warriors senior back Landon Mahoney BHW’s first snap from scrimmage on the next possession 75 yards to the house, bringing the deficit to 20-12 with 4:53 to play in the first quarter. 

The defense-is-optional switch was turned off after that drive, and the Warriors were able to tackle the Timberwolves six times on the next drive. However, the seventh play — a fourth down attempt from the BHW 4-yard-line — resulted in Crubel again running a reverse, and again sticking the pigskin over the pylon for a TD and a 27-12 lead with 2:10 left in the opening frame.

The Warriors answered again on offense with runs of 14, 9, 12, 8 and 8, with the last rush a TD for QB Reed McNutt on the first play of the second quarter. A converted 2-point try brought it back to a one-score game at 27-20.

“It was huge to be able to know that our offense could keep us in it; move the ball and score on them,” Breadon said. 

River Ridge scored again on its next drive, with Nies hitting Crubel on another fourth-down try, this time from the five yards out with 7:19 left in the half. Black Hawk-Warren didn’t score again before halftime, but River Ridge tacked on one more — a fourth-down WR pass from Crubel to Gage from 21-yards out. That put the Warriors behind 41-20 before halftime.

“The biggest thing is just to have guys stand up and tell the others to settle down. When we give up a big pass play, the guys can’t be hollering at the DB. When they scored on the reverse pass, I told them that it wasn’t the DB’s fault, it was the D-Line’s fault because they didn’t get pressure. If it’s a long run, it’s on the DBs because they didn’t come up and fill,” Breadon said. “Having the guys understand that — especially the younger guys — they just have to understand to relax a bit.”

In the second half, each team had just one touchdown and a turnover each. McNutt had a 3-yard TD run in the third quarter, and Andrew Nies scored from a yard out in the fourth. BHW also had a big defensive goal line stand at the half-yard line, only for McNutt to be brought down in the end zone for a safety on a blitz on the next snap. 

McNutt was 3 of 5 passing for 36 yards and added 59 rushing yards on 12 carries. Milz finished with 50 yards on nine touches, while Mahoney had 135 yards on seven attempts. BHW finished with 355 yards of offense.

The Timberwolves had 389 yards of offense in the first half, and 464 in the game, balanced at 220 through the air and 244 on the ground. Crubel had 10 rushes for 103 yards and three catches for 66. Gage had four catches for 154 yards. 

“We told our guys that we are a whole lot better of a team than we played, and we showed that later in the game,” Breadon said. 

River Ridge has clinched a spot in the WIAA postseason, while BHW needs two wins in the final three games to automatically qualify. The Warrior’s two losses have come against Top-10 ranked teams in the state, with the other in Week 3 against Darlington. Remaining on the schedule for the Warriors are Potosi-Cassville (5-1, 3-1) in Week 7, Benton/Scales Mound/Shullsburg (4-2, 3-1) in Week 8, and then Pecatonica-Argyle (0-6, 0-4) in Week 9. 

“You take our two losses out and we’ve been really good,” Breadon said, while emphasizing the team needs to grow in the mental part of the game just as much as the physical part. “We need to have those leaders stand up and know that they might have to put the team on their back and tell the other guys to ‘zip it’ and ‘we’re moving as a group, not as an individual’. 

“You can play with emotion, but you can’t let it overrun you. It’s got to be controlled emotion. A controlled intensity — not just flying around ruthless. You have to bottle it up and think and know what you’re doing,” Breadon said.