WELLSVILLE — The season is over for Humboldt High School’s football team. The Cubs lost 49-8 to Wellsville in the regional round of the playoffs Friday night.
The game was out of hand early in the first quarter. Wellsville went up 21-0 within the first few minutes. Humboldt simply could not stop the Eagles’ rushing attack and couldn’t get its own rushing game going.
“They (Wellsville) wanted it more,” running back Trey Sommer said. “We have the potential to be a great team and everybody knows it. It all comes down to who wants it more.”
Starting quarterback Gavin Page was injured in last week’s playoff win against St. Mary’s-Colgan. Sommer stepped up for the Cubs and started at quarterback while Page cheered his team on from the sideline.
“Gavin got hurt last year also and Trey started,” said Humboldt High head coach Logan Wyrick. “We weren’t worried about that. The problem is when you are at our level you only have about 35 guys or so. It’s a matter of moving parts around after that. We already play a lot of freshmen, we are a very young team. You are asking the freshmen to play an even larger role.”
Humboldt was held scoreless until late in the third quarter when Sommer threw an 11-yard touchdown to Dakota Slocum to get the Cubs on the board. The Cubs attempted and recovered an onside kick with hopes of making the game closer. Humboldt would not get that drive going, getting stopped on fourth down despite some good runs by Sommer and a deep shot down the field that just missed a Humboldt wide receiver.
The two teams exchanged the ball a bit more, but Wellsville had already wrapped the game up. With a minute and change left, Wellsville got the ball back and ran the clock out as they celebrated a regional title.
Sommer rushed 105 yards and passed for 11. Sommer also made two tackles. Cole Mathes ran for 15 yards, caught a pass for a yard. Mathes also made a tackle on defense. Aiden Gean made four tackles. River Kaufman had three tackles.
Humboldt ends the season 6-4. The record though is not an indication of the upward trajectory of the program. This was a year of building for the Cubs with a lot of promise for the future.
“There were a lot of growing pains this year,” Wyrick said.
“We wish it wasn’t 49-8,” Sommer said, reflecting on the final score. “We wish we could have put a few scores up and stopped them to make the game closer. It’s not how we wanted to come out of the season. Hopefully, we can come back next year and put the work in over the summer to be better. As a team, I think we need to take things more seriously throughout the week. We don’t take practice seriously and it shows.”
