Costly victory

Rough Riders lose QB in win

By Padraic Duffy, Journal staff | Saturday, September 20, 2008

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RAPID CITY — The Sioux Falls Roosevelt football team won a Greater Dakota Conference football game on Friday night, but it may have lost something more important for a while.

The Rough Riders knocked off Rapid City Stevens, 35-10, at O'Harra Stadium, but standout quarterback Jake Weiss was wheeled off the field on a stretcher with 7:39 left in the third quarter after suffering a neck injury while playing defense. The 6-foot-5 senior gave the crowd a thumbs up gesture as he was wheeled to an ambulance to be taken to the emergency room at Rapid City Regional Hospital. Weiss reportedly had a tingling sensation in his fingers before having a CAT scan performed.

“Any kid in the program is my concern,” Roosevelt head coach Brent Deboer said. “I think Jake’s OK, I think he was more scared than anything when we were out there. He’s a tough kid, probably scared, but I think he’s probably going to be all right, at least from what I saw.”

Weiss went down on a run by Stevens’ Kolton Emery and didn’t move for a good 10 to 15 seconds, but his right leg did move a little when trainers were on the field examining him before he gestured to the crowd as he was wheeled off to a standing ovation.

“I know him pretty well and I think he’s going to be OK, and I’m really thinking about him right now,” Deboer said. “We’ll find out pretty soon how he’s doing.”

The injury overshadowed a game that had both coaches feeling otherwise pretty positive afterward.

The Rough Riders opened the game with a 92-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by senior Brock Bills before Stevens went on a 16-play, 80-yard drive that ate up nearly nine minutes off the clock. The Raiders capped the drive with a 4-yard bootleg scramble for a touchdown by quarterback Alex Ferdinand to make it a 7-7 game.

“I thought that showed that our kids have a little in here,” Stevens head coach Paul Ferdinand said, pointing to his chest. “That return could have gotten them down, but they responded well. I think the kids are starting to believe in what we’re doing now. They showed that they could move the ball on a good team in Roosevelt and now we just need to keep building on that.”

Unfortunately for Stevens, that opening drive was as good as it would get for the rest of the night. The Raiders fumbled the snap on their next possession, giving the Riders a short field, which they capitalized on with Bills’ second TD of the night, an 11-yard scamper.

The Raider offense was forced to punt on its next possession, and Weiss wasted little time getting into the end zone as he romped 78 yards on an option run to the left side to give his team a 20-7 lead. Justin Syrovatka added a 21-yard field goal for Roosevelt after Stevens went three-and-out on its next possession to make it 23-7 heading into the half. The Rough Riders kept control of the game in the second half as running back Jordan Hermanson ran for the bulk of his 66 yards and scored a touchdown.

“I’m concerned about Jake but I’m awfully proud of the rest of our kids,” Deboer said. “They (Stevens) came out and were really emotional to start the game and I don't think that we matched that early. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Ferdie and his guys. They played as hard as any team we’ve played against this year. But our guys came back and really did a good job there through the end of the game. We’re an inexperienced team looking for our personality right now, but I really think we’ve got a chance to be a good football team by the end of the year.”

Roosevelt is 2-2 overall and 1-2 in the GDC and will host Spearfish next Friday. Stevens (1-3, 1-2) will play at Sioux Falls O'Gorman.