Football snaps losing streak with victory over division rival

By Thomas Shultz
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Updated: 09/27/2016

Westminster broke their 4 game losing streak with a 20-6 win against the Priory Rebels.

The Westminster offense has struggled over the past few weeks but going up against a 0-5 Priory team, they were hoping to get a confidence boost for their offense. They did just that by jumping off to an early 7-0 lead on a 21yd pass from Josh Pottebaum to Dyllan Conway only 5 minutes into the game.

Through the rest of the 1st half, the Wildcats were able to continue their lockdown defense that they’ve shown all season. They forced 4 three and outs and held Priory to under 100 yards in the first half.

Toward the end of the 2nd quarter, Westminster put together a good 65 yard drive but had to settle for a 20 yard field goal from Sophomore Andrew Kempen to make it 10-0. Senior QB Josh Pottebaum said, “We were able to put together some long, methodical drives today. Even though we had to settle for field goals on a few of them. We just felt smoother and more together today.” This is the first time since Chad Briden went down that the Cats have really been able to have a long drive and not just a 60 or 70 yard pass.

The second half started off slow with no offense in the entire 3rd quarter. The Wildcat defense continued its dominance even though their offense hit a cold streak going 0 for 6 on passing to start out the second half. But Junior LB Battle helped get the offense going again. He started this game to fill Steve Webb’s spot who was down with a shoulder injury. OLB Cooper Moore said, “It’s nice to know that we have these two guys [LB Battle and Atlin Hall] who can step up and give Steve [Webb] a break if he needs it and do a good job at their positions.” Battle finished the game with a sold 91 yards while Hall had 48.

In the fourth, the Cats were able to put together a few more long drives. The first one resulted in 35 yard field goal from Andrew Kempen. The Cats started their last drive on their own 15. They ran 11 played, 5 completions and 6 runs, to set up a 17 yard touchdown pass from Josh Pottebaum to junior Grant Lavalle to make it 20-0.

With about 2 minutes to go in the game, the Westminster defense had their only slip up of the game, letting up a 25 yard touchdown pass from James Dimitroff to Dan Kacmerek to make it 20-6. But Cooper Moore responded by forcing a fumble on Priory’s final drive to seal the game.

The Wildcats next game is this Saturday vs MICDS (Carnival Weekend) at home @2pm