Rockets end season with playoff loss to Cougars

On Saturday afternoon, the New Rockford-Sheyenne Rockets (5-4,3-1) ended their season how it began, with another tough loss to the North Prairie Cougars (6-3,2-2), this time falling by a score of 14-40 in the first round of the playoffs.

There were plenty of differences between this defeat and the Rockets' 16-6 loss to the Cougars in late August, but one aspect remained constant; the excellence of Cougars' quarterback, Nicholas Mears.

Much like he did in their season opener, Mears gashed the NR-S defense all game long. Mears boasted 145 yards on just nine carries in the first half alone, and would go on to score five of the Cougars' six touchdowns.

"We tried different looks, different blitzes, different stunts, but we just couldn't execute it," explained Rockets head coach Elliott Belquist.

Throughout this season, the Rockets' prolific ground attack would keep themselves in the game when their defense struggled, but the offense wasn't faring any better on Saturday. Senior Kaden Jensen began the contest with an excellent 63-yard touchdown run, but the Rockets' offense would fall silent soon after.

The Cougars made themselves comfortable in the Rockets' backfield, constantly coming up with sacks and tackles for loss that killed nearly every NR-S drive. In the second half alone, North Prairie held the Rockets to -10 yards of offense, allowing the Cougars to score 32 unanswered points after falling behind 14-8 in the first half.

"[They brought] blitzers," said Belquist on how the Cougars were able to stop his team. "We struggled to pick them up again, and that's been the story of the year against quality opponents. We just had trouble protecting our gaps."

The loss ends what was an up and down season for the Rockets. Coach Belquist was forced to rebuild his offense after a pair of tough losses and a season-ending injury to their starting quarterback to start the year.

Rather than the spread offense he'd been conducting for years, Belquist transformed his squad into a hard-nose ground attack team, and for a stretch of five games it worked like a charm.

"Ya know we had a nice stretch there," said Belquist. "Proud of the guys for working hard, fighting hard, and fixing things. We had a lot of young guys stepping up so that was good to see ... and proud of the effort our seniors put in. Now we gotta build on the positives and work on the negatives."

While the Rockets mark the end of another season, the North Prairie Cougars will travel to Bottineau to face the No. 4 Bottineau Braves on Saturday, Oct. 23. The Braves went undefeated in the regular season, and recently defeated the Cougars 50-14 on Oct. 8.