JAMESTOWN — No. 5 Devils Lake was down 23-20. Less than a minute on the clock. Driving the ball downfield on No. 2 Jamestown’s home turf.
So Mason Palmer dialed in. A long pass to Weston Nelson took care of the grunt work, with a 47-yard gain into the red zone. Palmer connected with Oliver Wirth, who gained three more.
Then Palmer broke his way through the line. He dove in for what appeared to be a touchdown, complete with cheers and celebrations like the Firebirds had just beaten the No. 2-ranked team in Division A.
But Palmer was ruled down at the one-yard line. The Firebirds couldn’t believe it.
“I mean, I thought it was in,” Palmer said. “But it’s whatever.”
So back to work the Devils Lake offense went, with one yard needed in the next 23 seconds. Palmer took it again. He stepped in through the middle, and for the second straight play — this time, justifiably so — the Firebirds were celebrating a go-ahead touchdown, sending metaphorical airwaves through the grounds at Charlotte and Gordon Hansen Stadium.
“I put a little pressure on their defense with a sneak,” Palmer said. “So it was pretty fun.”
And so, despite trailing the majority of a game in which the home team Blue Jays were favored, the Firebirds pulled out a stunner. Devils Lake (3-1)’s final-play touchdown secured a 27-23 victory over Jamestown (3-1) on Friday, backing up the ranking that the Firebirds earned themselves this week.
“We try and treat it as a game,” Devils Lake head coach Todd Lambrecht said. “They’re a solid team. They are. They’re physical. And our biggest challenge was to be more physical than them this week. And it took us a little bit to get going, but we started picking it up.”
How it happened
Devils Lake pulled off this miracle without its best running back, Bryar Exner.
Exner, who shined in the Firebirds’ 26-6 win over Watford City, is down with a dislocated shoulder right now. He’s expected to be back before the end of the season. But with no Exner, Devils Lake went with sophomore Will Heilman — who had prior experience at running back, but had been playing wide receiver this year.
“We weren’t sure about our depth, so we asked Will if he could play there, and he said yes,” Lambrecht said. “Those running back skills came out. He ran hard. He ran great.”
On the first series of the game, Palmer picked up a gain of nine by running it up the middle himself. He handed it off to Heilman, who picked up the first down.
But a loss of four on a handoff hurt Devils Lake on the next play, and it couldn’t find any alternative. Palmer was nearly intercepted on a desperation third-down throw while under pressure.
Jamestown executed a slant pass to get the ball to Devils Lake’s 39-yard line. The Blue Jays were immediately finding easier routes than the Firebirds were, getting a pair of seven-yard gains.
Just when Jamestown seemed to gelling, it committed a false start. Then on a long pass attempt, cornerback Coby Dronen Levitt snatched it for an interception.
Wing Kade Fee took a handoff for a gain of 11, but the Firebirds’ next drive was otherwise short-lived. Palmer tried handing it off to Heilman twice, and each time he was tackled for a marginal loss. Devils Lake had to punt.
A gain of 16 got Jamestown across midfield. But after a tackle by Brody Forsberg on a gain of five, Jamestown was hit with a holding penalty. Heilman tipped away a pass attempt, and the Blue Jays were forced to punt.
Palmer threw a first-down pass to Dronen Levitt on the next drive — but once again, Heilman struggled to find gains. To make the situation extra dire, Devils Lake’s punt was blocked, and Jamestown took over the ball at Devils Lake’s two-yard line.
Jamestown easily picked up the touchdown. Running back Kelan Harstad waltzed in for the first score of the game, giving the Blue Jays a 7-0 lead with 31 seconds left in the first quarter.
Fee had two sizable runs to open the second quarter, but Palmer was eventually sacked, leading Jamestown to take the ball on its own 43. It went on to score its second touchdown in as many offensive drives. The Blue Jays had pass plays of 11 and 20 yards, as part of a drive that totaled 56 yards.
Despite a lack of success in that area thus far on the night, Devils Lake went right back to the running game. Palmer, after not finding a man, ran it himself for an eight-yard gain on third down. Brody Forsberg ran for six yards, and Heilman took two plays to pick up the remaining four and get to the Firebirds’ own 41.
“Bryar is a beast, so just telling our other running backs to run as hard as he does,” Palmer said of the adjustments they made without Exner. “Because he runs really hard. Will Heilman, our running back tonight, did a great job.”
But Palmer handed it off to Nelson, who had nowhere to go and got tackled for a loss of two. On third down, Palmer came up with a massive pass downfield to Dronen Levitt, who ran for a total gain of 43 yards on the play. He got all the way down to Jamestown’s 18-yard line.
“He’s just stepping up his game,” Lambrecht said of Dronen Levitt, who came up big on both sides of the ball. “We know what a lot of these guys are capable of. But they have to understand what they’re able to do. And once they can understand that, they can start achieving more and more.”
Heilman continued to look more comfortable as time went on. He ran for eight yards, and then Forsberg ran for nine more, getting Devils Lake to the one-yard line. Palmer ran a quarterback sneak and easily found the end zone.
The Firebirds were right back in this thing. At halftime, they trailed only 14-7.
Jamestown carved up Devils Lake’s defense on the first drive of the second half.
Two carries by Harstad got the Blue Jays past midfield. A quick slant pass got them a first down, and another run by Harstad got the ball inside the 10.
Jamestown executed another one of those slant passes perfectly to pick up a very quick touchdown. After taking a 20-7 lead, though, the Blue Jays faked the kick and went for two — and they almost converted, but Dronen Levitt made a resilient tackle at the one-yard line to keep Devils Lake within two scores.
Heilman picked up a first down on Devils Lake’s first drive of the second half. But Palmer was sacked to bring it back eight yards, then threw back-to-back incomplete passes.
A tackle by Forsberg helped Devils Lake force a quick stop to regain the ball.
Heilman ran for 15 yards over the span of two plays, and Palmer ran it himself for a gain of 12 on third down. On the 34-yard line, Palmer made two incomplete passes, the latter of which came with a blitz on him.
But then he found Wirth.
The 6-foot-6 senior wide receiver, who’d been held quiet thus far, caught Palmer’s pass inside the 20. After breaking a tackle, the end zone was wide open for him.
“I noticed their DBs were playing off, and the corner route was gonna be wide open,” Palmer said. “So I just stared him down, tried to put it in there and he broke the tackle and scored the touchdown. It was pretty sweet.”
Devils Lake kicked the extra point, getting within six points at 20-14.
“Those big plays like that are important,” Lambrecht said. “That is awesome, and just to have those little things can turn a game.”
The Firebirds forced another three-and-out to get the ball back with less than a minute left in the third quarter. So, after a seemingly easy opening drive for the Blue Jays’ offense, Devils Lake responded with two dominant shutdowns.
“[The Blue Jays] came out and they kicked us,” Lambrecht said, “and the biggest thing I noticed from our guys — and I told them this — is that their heads weren’t down. There’s so much more game left. And they’re starting to understand that. They’ve just gotta keep fighting.”
A strong punt return by Dronen Levitt started Devils Lake’s next drive at Jamestown’s 44. Wirth muscled his way through a pile, breaking numerous tackles to somehow grind the ball all the way to the 26.
Another big run from Heilman, this time for a gain of 14, got Devils Lake inside the five. On second and one, Palmer squeezed in for his second touchdown run of the game.
It was an enormous moment for the Firebirds — which was quickly dampened after Devils Lake missed the extra point. Thus, it was knotted at 20-20 with less than 10 minutes left on the clock.
Devils Lake’s defense had a brief lapse, allowing a 46-yard run that got Jamestown to the seven-yard line. But the Firebirds held strong, aided by a missed catch in the end zone on a seemingly perfect, wide-open pass. The Blue Jays settled for a field goal, and retook a 23-20 lead.
Jamestown, starting from Devils Lake’s 40-yard line, utilized Harstad again to get to the 27. Fee was taken down, and he had to be helped off the field — his status thereafter still pending.
But the Firebirds had a game to finish. Jaxon Strong came up with a huge tackle of Harstad on third down, and Dronen Levitt forced a turnover on downs with a tackle in the backfield.
And so Devils Lake began its final offensive drive, still trailing but sensing the monumental boost that a touchdown could provide.
After Heilman got tackled for a loss of one and Palmer was sacked, it was the aforementioned 47-yard pass to Nelson that shook the game on its face. A touchdown was no longer a pipe dream, but something on the cusp of reality.
Palmer tried. He thought he’d succeeded. He’d actually come just short. So he tried again. Ryan Samuelson intercepted a last-ditch effort by Jamestown with four seconds on the clock, and voila: The Firebirds were victors, mobbing each other at midfield in Jamestown’s home stadium, in front of Jamestown’s student section, with Jamestown’s PA announcer proclaiming the final score.
This is a team that wasn’t even ranked until this week. The way things were looking early, down 14-0, the Firebirds may very well have been on their way back to the outside looking in on the polls.
But they won. They defeated No. 2 Jamestown to show that they’re not messing around.
“I’m absolutely pumped up,” Palmer said. “It was a gritty, hard-fought game.”
Now Devils Lake gets a bye week before returning home on Sept. 27 for its homecoming game against Wahpeton.
The Firebirds will skid up Highway 281 into Devils Lake as a ranked football team. But the work doesn’t stop now.
“Just the little things; individual stuff that we need to get better at,” Lambrecht said. “Because we had some issues picking up certain aspects of the defense that we need to talk about and work on, pick up on. Just those little things to tweak so when we get into region play, we can do better.”
Watch the game’s final moments from the sideline, plus the postgame interviews with Palmer and Lambrecht, at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeyxT1qwtEs
