Brody Anderson gets first home win as Holdingford goes down to wire

Holdingford, MN — First and 10 from the thirty-yard line, down seven with three timeouts and just under three minutes left to play.

It is what every little kid playing football dreams of when they are playing in the backyard. The situation was perfect. With about half of the City of Holdingford gathered around the field, and an eerie thunderstorm looming behind, the ambiance surrounding Holdingford Field was palpable.   

In a game where Royalton scored zero offensive points, quarterback Connor Boser and the Royals had the perfect opportunity to right the ship and spoil coach Brody Anderson’s home opener.

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Although it may not be exactly where he wants to be come crunch time, Anderson was unphased.

“We had no doubt putting our defense on the field in that situation,” Anderson said. “We were going to win the game.”

It is often considered that offense wins games and defense wins championships, especially at the high school level.

For Holdingford; though, its defense is the lone reason for its 2-0 start.

For the second week in a row, the Husker defense stopped a game-winning two-point conversion to secure a 9-8 victory over Royalton. Last week was a 7-6 triumph over Cathedral.

“It came down a little bit tighter than we like, and down to one play again,” Anderson said. “But these guys stepped up and did it when they needed to.”  

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With an inexperienced group all over the field, the Huskers were able to overcome two fumbled long snap exchanged — the latter for a safety — and a costly fumble which set up Royalton’s game-winning drive attempt.

Going into halftime down 2-0, neither team had much gone offensively which bled into the second half.

Following a Royalton turnover on downs, running back Austin Terpstra took a toss off the right tackle 62 yards to pay dirt for what would ultimately become the go-ahead score. The Huskers recovered the ensuing kickoff and went into the final quarter up 9-2 thanks to a Tatum Manske 19-yard field goal.

“[Terpstra] has a lot of talent,” Anderson said. “Really happy that he came out and played football for us this year; he hasn’t played in years. He’s been a helpful guy on our offense; he gets an open space like that [and] I’m going to take him against any of the guys out there. It was a big uplift for our guys.”

While two turnovers in the fourth quarter kept Royalton around, the Husker defense prevailed and gave Anderson his first home win as head coach.

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“There’s always pressure here, we’re a football school,” Anderson said. “I got to give credit to these guys because they’re the ones that carried me through it. It certainly wasn’t the offense putting up nine points today; it was our defense that carried us.”

Defensive coordinator Hunter Ahrens is the mastermind behind the defensive effort for Holdingford, calling all of the defensive plays and formations. Subbing players in and out, and has full control of what is happening on the field when the offense is sidelined.

“We got a lot of confidence right now,” Anderson said. “We have not played our best offensively and we know we have plenty of mistakes, and we see those on film. Our defense is stealth, and that’ll carry you a long way in high school football. We keep playing like that on defense, and our offense will come around and make some plays.”

The Huskers are back at home on Sept. 18 against Eden Valley-Watkins; Royalton is at Apollo on the same day.

You can reach St. Cloud Times sports reporter David Jacobs and send story ideas to djacobs@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @davidrjacobs10.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Brody Anderson gets first home win as Holdingford goes down to wire