Despite a strong defensive effort to begin the game, which ended with one made and one missed field goal for the Mustangs, the Huskies had no points to show for their own efforts at the end of the first quarter. That all changed though when sophomore Avion Tucker scored on a 7 yard touchdown run, 18 seconds into the second quarter, putting the Huskies up 7-3.

Quarterbacking for the Huskies on their only scoring drive, freshman Mikey Pauley threw for 52 yards on 10-15 passing with an interception. Pauley said the offense was able to feed off the defense’s successes earlier in the game in order to take the lead.  

“[We] started out well,” Pauley said. “After the defense stopped them near the goal-line, it kept the offense going.”

Working as a one-two punch with senior Sam Sliefert at quarterback, head coach Clint Rider said was proud of the decisions his freshman quarterback made early in the game.

After taking an early lead, the Huskies gave up 35 unanswered points to the Mustangs in the second quarter. Much of this, Rider said, was due to the quarterback play for BVN along with his teams struggle to continue to play when down.

“On our end, it’s one of those things where we have to keep playing when things stop going our way,” Rider said. “It’s hard to do, but it is something we can work on.”

After seeing early success on the ground, sophomore Avion Tucker said the inability to execute as an offense after the touchdown contributed to the big second quarter for the Mustangs. With Huskies falling behind big in the first half becoming a common occurrence over the last few games, Tucker said the Huskies need to focus on their effort levels.

“We have to work harder,” Tucker said. “That’s all we have to worry about.”

Commenting on the improvements for this week’s game while looking toward next week’s against Bishop Miege High School, Rider said once the Huskies are able to string together four quarters, the results will follow.

“I think we showed some good signs of improvement,” Rider said. “It’s just about putting four quarters together.”

Following the loss to Blue Valley North, the varsity football team will take on Bishop Miege in their final regular season game on Friday Oct. 19 at 7:00 p.m at Bishop Miege.