Eagan Rally Falls Short in 21-14 Loss To Prior Lake

Eagan and Prior Lake showed that team records can be deceiving.

The Wildcats put forth a tremendous effort, in the words of their coach, and may have been the better team at Dan Patch Stadium Friday.

However, Eagan couldn’t get the job done for a full game and lost 21-14 to the Lakers. It was the first setback in three games for the Wildcats (2-4, 2-3 South Suburban Conference), while Prior Lake (4-2, 4-1) won its third straight.

“We’ve got two games, 10 days to figure out how to be a good football team all the time. We haven’t done that consistently at all,” said Eagan coach Rick Sutton. “When we execute and we do those things we are pretty good.”

They did that at the end to give themselves a chance.

After getting within 21-14 and a successful onside kick, the Wildcats took over on the Prior Lake 44 with 1:23 to play. Quarterback Drew Bauer was dropped for a 6-yard sack on first down, scrambled for 13 yards on second down, but was dropped for a 2-yard loss on third down.

On fourth down, Bauer scrambled right and heaved the ball toward Aaron Roundtree at the goal line. The ball was deflected by a quick-closing Prior Lake defender, and a diving Mack Nelson came up a couple of feet short as he reached for the ball in the end zone.

Bauer was 15-of-28 for 105 yards through the air. He also rushed 26 times for 182 yards.

Eagan’s defense limited Prior Lake’s top runner, Jack Kaiser to 93 yards, but 46 of those came on a fourth-down play late in the third quarter for a 14-0 lead.

The Wildcats forced the Lakers into a punting situation earlier in the drive, but jumped offside on a 4th-and-6. Instead of punting, Prior Lake successfully went for it on fourth down to keep the drive going.

“We had three really bad penalties that hurt us: a holding call, a personal foul and we took the offside on 4th-and-6,” Sutton said. “Those things really hurt us.”

The holding call was on the ensuing drive when Pete Economou got inside the 1-yard line, but the infraction made it second down at the 12-yard line rather than third down inside of 3 feet. After two incomplete passes, Bauer and Michael Busch hooked up for a score to make it 14-7.

Prior Lake quickly answered with some Eagan help.

Starting from its own 29, the Lakers gained 10 yards on the first play of its series and another 15 yards were added for an unsportsmanlike penalty against Eagan, erasing any momentum the Wildcats had. Six plays later Jack Johnson scored from the 2 to make it 21-7.

A 28-yard run by Bauer keyed a 14-play Eagan drive that was capped by a 4-yard touchdown reception by Eric Woodcock to make it 21-14.

“They played hard and they played with a lot of heart, but we dug ourselves too big a hole,” Sutton said.

Prior Lake got the only score of the opening half when a punt by Bauer hit off an Eagan lineman and Ted Choudek picked up the bouncing ball and raced 20 yards for a score. Bauer was trying to keep the ball low because he was punting into a gusty wind.

The Wildcats moved the ball to the Prior Lake 46 with just under a minute to go in the first half, but ran just one more play.

“We knew we were getting the ball coming out and it didn’t make sense to make a mistake at that point of the game,” Sutton said.

Eagan welcomes Burnsville Friday in its final home game of the regular season. The rapidly improving Blaze (2-4, 2-4) beat Eastview 36-29 Friday.