The Fortuna Huskies suffered another disappointing loss on Friday night as they dropped to 2-5 on the season, but the players showed a lot of resiliency in the second half to make for an interesting finish to the game.
Playing Silverado High in Victorville, the Huskies trailed 25-6 early in the second half, before mounting a comeback and pulling to within four points in the final minutes.
The junior running back tandem of Mako Limon and Kavi Bolden keyed the second-half rally and combined for 303 yards rushing as the Huskies ground attack found some success.
Limon ran for 178 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries and Bolden added 125 yards and two TDs on 17 carries, as both players continue to establish themselves in their first season playing at the varsity level.
Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t enough for a Fortuna team that has suffered more injuries than just about any other H-DNL team this fall, particularly in the trenches.
A patched up offensive line did a good job in the second half and paved the way for the success on the ground while opening up holes for the junior tailbacks.
Ultimately, the difference in the game was Silverado senior quarterback Jace Weiss, who caused the Fortuna defense problems with his scrambling.
Weiss threw for what would be the game-winning TD on a fourth-down conversion in the fourth quarter, just as the Huskies had grabbed the momentum back and had narrowed the deficit to five (25-20).
That late score put the home team up 32-20 and even though the Huskies would respond with a four-yard TD run by Jake Houseworth in the dying minutes, they were unable to recover the ensuing onside kick and the Hawks held on for the win.
While the Huskies enjoyed plenty of productivity with the running game, they had no success at all passing the ball, throwing just two passes all night and seeing one of them picked off by the Silverado defense.
The Hawks improved to 4-3 with the win.
The Huskies will have a bye next week before kicking off conference play at Del Norte in two weeks time.
