Huskies come up short at home in 28-27 nailbiter against West Anchorage

A game loaded with gut-wrenching plays and momentum switches ended up every bit as close as its 28-27 final score, with the Juneau Huskies on the short end against West Anchorage High School after an agonizingly long decision by officials with 81 seconds left didn’t go the Huskies’ way.

Juneau (2-3 overall, 1-3 in the Cook Inlet Conference) showcased a new look in its second home game of the season with frequent use of a four-receiver spread offense. The team also took advantage of several miscues by West Anchorage, particularly in the first half when the Huskies jumped out to a 19-0 lead in the second quarter.

“I would take that kind of effort any day of the week,” Juneau Head Coach Rich Sjoroos said. “And you know they didn’t come out on top on the scoreboard, but I sure felt like they won today, just the way they played and the effort they gave. Sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story, at least that’s how I feel about it.”

The Eagles threw three interceptions during the game, were called for penalties on two punts that led to Juneau first downs, and nearly fumbled the game away after seemingly clinching the win in the final two minutes.

However, West Anchorage also hit a Hail Mary pass on the last play of the first half to narrow the gap to 19-7. They then put Zephaniah Sailele — who’d spent the first half as a defensive lineman — in at running back with punishing effectiveness throughout the second half to overcome the Huskies’ edge.

Sailele has played running back for the Eagles at other times during the season, but the game plan was to keep him on defense at the start of Saturday’s game, said West Anchorage Head Coach Tim Davis.

“We’ve been trying to maintain so he can run,” Davis said. “He runs so fierce. There’s so much energy being exerted by him and we thought that we had to have him more fresh for defense. But I think tonight we went into the second half saying ‘You know what? We’re going to find other guys for defense and you’re gonna carry this thing.’ And tonight was beautiful. He absolutely carried this thing.”

There were plenty of “what-if” moments involving single plays. But perhaps the biggest came when West Anchorage —taking over on downs with 90 seconds left deep in its own territory with a 28-25 lead— fumbled on the ensuing snap and sent players into a scrum at the goal line.

Officials were left to decide if the Huskies had recovered on the 1-yard line or an Eagle had been tackled in the end zone for a safety. After a prolonged conference, the latter was called based on an official blowing a whistle while a West Anchorage player with the ball was hit in the end zone.

While that narrowed the gap to 28-27 and allowed Juneau to get possession of the ball on its 33-yard line after a free kick with 1:15 left and two timeouts, they were without starting quarterback Noah Ault who’d been injured on a long scramble during Juneau’s previous possession a couple of minutes earlier as Huskies were trying to drive for a winning or tying score.

Backup Caleb Ziegenfuss — who’d played various offensive, defensive and special teams positions throughout the game — picked up eight yards on a scramble on first down. But the next three passing plays were an incompletion, sack and incompletion to effectively end the game with 25 seconds remaining.

“It wasn’t very ideal hopping in the fourth quarterback without playing the whole game (there) and I was playing several other positions where I had to go in for other people, so it makes it kind of hard to jump around,” he said.

Both teams punted on their first offensive possession, with Juneau winning the field position battle by beginning its second possession on the West Anchorage 39-yard-line. After a one-yard run by Ziegenfuss and an incomplete pass by Ault to Ziegenfuss, Ault hit senior playmaking wide receiver Jayden Johnson for an easy 38-yard touchdown pass after the defender covering him fell down with 7:30 left in the first quarter.

The four-receiver offense by the Huskies, mingled in about evenly with the single-wing formation they used heavily so far this year, was used to help open offensive opportunities against a West Anchorage team with lots of large players, Sjoroos said.

“I knew that against this defensive line you can’t use the formula that we used last week,” he said, referring to last week’s 17-6 road win over California’s Bishop High School. “That wasn’t going to work for four quarters against these guys. We did enough of it to try and keep them honest.”

West Anchorage, which ran a no-huddle offense throughout the game, committed its first turnover on the ensuing possession when Juneau’s Daniel Campbell intercepted a pass that he returned to the Huskies’ 39-yard line.

On the Huskies’ first ensuing play Johnson ran an end-around for 37 yards to the West Anchorage 24-yard line. From there the Huskies’ ground the ball out into the end zone, with Samuel Sarof getting the bulk of the carries and smashing the ball across the goal line on a short run with 3:39 remaining in the first quarter. A missed two-point try left the score at 13-0 Juneau.

The Huskies quickly followed up with their second defensive interception of the quarter when Ziegenfuss snagged a rollout pass on the Eagle’s first play, giving Juneau the ball at the West Anchorage 41-yard line. But the Huskies, after driving to the West Anchorage 23-yard line, turned the ball over when they failed to convert a fourth down attempt.

West Anchorage punted on its next possession and the Huskies, taking over on their own 47-yard line, went on a drive to the Eagles’ 11-yard line with key playing including a 17-yard Ault-to-Johnson pass and another pass by Ault to Johnathyn Kestel to the 16-yard-line. When the drive stalled Sammy Mazon kicked a 29-yard field goal to put the Huskies up 16-0 with 7:07 left in the half.

The Eagles would drive inside Juneau territory on their next possession, but came up short on a fourth-and-4 conversion at the Huskies’ 39-yard line.

Juneau took over with 5:14 left in the half, but their drive appeared to stall with about 2:15 left in the half — until West Anchorage committed yet another mistake on a Huskies’ punt with a roughing the kicker penalty. The Huskies got the ball inside the Anchorage 5-yard line, but on fourth down with 17 seconds until halftime and no timeouts Sjoroos opted for another field goal by Mazon to put Juneau up 19-0.

“I thought we left some points on the field in the first half, that we could have maybe had more than 19,” Sjoroos said.

West Anchorage took over at its 35-yard line with eight seconds left and, after one long pass fell incomplete, a second Hail Mary was caught by the Eagles’ Ariel Sanchez at the Huskies’ 35-yard line and he was able to run the ball into the end zone to put the visiting team on the board 19-7 at halftime.

The visitors got the ball to start the second half, but a personal foul penalty put them in a hole they had to punt out of. But Juneau went three-and-out — but then West Anchorage committed yet another error with its third interception of the day to the Huskies’ Sage Schultz, who gave his team the ball at its own 26-yard line.

The Huskies’ offense stalled and, after another punt, the West Anchorage offense came to life at its own 35-yard line with Sailele in the backfield. On the second play he ran the ball to the Juneau 31-yard line and, five straight running plays by the Eagles later, scored to give the visitors their second touchdown, with a missed extra point making the score 19-13 with 4:20 left in the third quarter.

“We used up a lot of our fuel tank in the first half,” Sjoroos said. “It’s a tough matchup. They got a lot of kids that play football and a lot of big bodies…And they found a formula that was kind of working for them in the second half.”

A fumble by Juneau on its next possession gave West Anchorage the ball on the Huskies’ 31-yard line and three more runs by Sailele, the last for a 13-yard touchdown, gave the Eagles their first lead with 2:49 left in the quarter.

While the moment seemed in West Anchorage’s favor, yet another mistake from them would give it back to Juneau. The Huskies lined up for a punt after a three-and-out series, but a running into the kicker penalty resulted in a fourth-and-1 Juneau would convert. From there they drove to the West Anchorage 31-yard line, where Ault connected with Johnson for their second touchdown of the day. A failed two-point conversion left Juneau up 25-20 with 11:26 in the game.

Sailele continued his torment of the Huskies as the Eagles started their next possession at their 41-yard line, running for 12, 24 and seven yards on the first three plays. Two plays later a 14-yard pass to Sanchez for his second touchdown and a two-point conversion put West Anchorage back in front 28-25 with 9:41 remaining.

The teams then exchanged punts as Juneau finally kept Sailele in check, but he had West Anchorage threatening again at the Juneau 32-yard line with just over three minutes to go. However, in one of the biggest defensive stops of the game, Juneau’s Ethan Van Kirk and Hyrum Fish stuffed Sailele for no gain on a fourth-and-inches, giving the Huskies the ball and a chance to win with 3:11 remaining.

On the first play Ault got the Huskies to the midfield stripe with an 18-yard scramble — but it was a costly run as he injured his shoulder diving for yardage and didn’t return to the game. Three plays later Ziegenfuss threw an interception that gave West Anchorage the ball at its 15-yard line with 90 seconds remaining — and Eagles players celebrating what appeared to be a likely victory.

But an Eagles coach reminded his players “it’s not over yet — something could go wrong, so be ready” — and that’s exactly what happened.

A direct snap to Sailele on the first play was botched and fumbled, resulting in a skirmish at the West Anchorage end zone that officials originally ruled was Juneau’s ball at the 1-yard line. But after officials conferred for several minutes — to clamorous chants from the home crowd — the ruling was a whistle had blown the ball dead for a safety.

While that gave Juneau the ball and the opportunity to win with a field goal with 81 seconds remaining, the need to drive about 50 yards instead of one proved too much to overcome.

The Huskies’ next game is on the road against the state’s top-ranked team, Dimond High School in Anchorage, at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21. Sjoroos said given the effort his team put in against West Anchorage he believes a strong matchup on the road is possible.

“We’ve turned the corner and we’re not going to lay down for anybody,” he told his players after the game.

Ziegenfuss, who filled in as the starter for two earlier games when Ault was hurt, said he’ll be ready to do so again if needed next Saturday.

“I’m always confident,” he said. “I’m confident in our team. I think we have a tough team, tough hearts. I think I think we can get the job done.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.