Juneau defense shines late in loss to Lathrop

The Juneau unified football team was on the verge its seventh consecutive scoreless quarter when senior Hansel Hinckle decided to do something about it on Saturday night at Thunder Mountain High School against Lathrop.

Hinckle picked off an errant pass and galloped about 25 yards into the end zone with just 22 seconds left in the third quarter, giving fans something to cheer about in a game that was pretty bleak up until that point. The Malemutes scored two touchdowns in the first 90 seconds of play and forced four turnovers in the first quarter alone, eventually winning 40-13.

“I thought I came too soon under the ball but it just happened to be there,” Hinckle said. “And I was running toward the sideline and decided to cut back, and the hole was there.”

After giving up 40 unanswered points in the first half, Juneau shut out the Malemutes over the final two frames.

“Very impressive with these guys with being resilient and playing hard and through adversity,” Juneau coach Randy Quinto said. “I thought they played well tonight, we just fell behind early.”

“The first half we were making silly mistakes, we just weren’t doing our assignments,” Hinckle added. “Our coach talked to us at half, changed our defense and everybody started to pick up their man and their responsibilities.”

The first mistake came on the very first play of the game. Lathrop senior quarterback Jaden Littell tossed it laterally to senior Michael Zadra, who converted a 71-yard touchdown pass to senior Dana Mowry. It was Zadra’s first career touchdown pass.

“We actually put that (play) in just two or three days before the game even started,” Zadra said. “It was an idea from our coach and he just thought it would work.”

The Malemutes got the ball right back on an onside kick before driving 39 yards for another touchdown, this one by senior Juan Mendez.

The teams traded fumbles before Deondric Henderson picked off Juneau quarterback Cooper Kriegmont and scored a 50-yard touchdown. On just the second play of the ensuring Juneau drive, the Malemutes forced another turnover. Littell went for it on fourth-and-18 from the 23-yard line and found Mendez in the end zone to go up 26-0 after the extra point with 11:17 left in the second quarter.

The score remained 26-0 for much of the rest of the quarter as penalties stifled drives by both teams.

Lathrop’s Bubba Maschmeier and Zadra added touchdowns though in the closing two minutes of half to give the Malemutes the 40-0 lead.

Juneau quarterback Max Wheat and running back Caleb Traxler rushed the ball in the second half and picked up several nice gains.

Just a minute after Hinckle’s interception, Kriegmont picked off backup quarterback Jace Henry and ran it in for a second touchdown.

Traxler said he can sense the team is starting to come together.

“That first quarter was pretty rough but that second half we came out and we dominated,” Traxler said. “So I feel pretty good about the second half and feel if we can just pull our stuff together at the beginning and come out strong we’ll do a lot better than we did tonight.”

Juneau (0-4) will play on the road next weekend against Wasilla (1-4), who lost on Friday to Chugiak 17-14, and Lathrop (3-1) takes on Kodiak (1-2).

The Juneau United junior varsity team defeated Lathrop in an earlier contest at TMHS. Freshman running back Gaby Soto scored a touchdown with just seconds left on the clock to lift his team to a 25-22 victory.

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• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.

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