FREEMAN — The Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy and Elkton-Lake Benton matchup didn’t disappoint on Friday.

The Class 9AA No. 3 Phoenix outlasted Class 9AA No. 1 Elks, 42-28, in a highly-entertaining contest that featured two high-powered offenses and no lead was safe in this one. 

“What a football game,” FMFA coach Dustin Tschetter said. “Two really good teams going at it. We expect to see them again down the road hopefully. That’s what we came in here thinking and we want to see where we stand right now.” 

The Phoenix (3-0) stood tall Friday, used a 21-0 surge to seize control and held the Elks (2-1) to just one touchdown in the second half. 

“We knew they were going to score,” Tschetter said. “We expected to score and we won the turnover battle. That was the difference in the game. We got one turnover to set up a touchdown. It was a big difference.”

The Elks chipped away at a 34-21 deficit and got within 34-28 on a Colt Beck-to-Myles Poindexter 18-yard TD strike, with 9:26 left in the game. 

But the Phoenix chewed up eight minutes off the clock, culminating with a Riley Tschetter one-yard TD plunge with 1:23 left.  

“We knew we had to score because they have a great offense over there,” Riley Tschetter said. “I didn’t want to go on defense only up six. So that was the mindset and we got it done.”

Tschetter, a senior dual-threat quarterback, did a bulk of the damage on the game-clinching drive. But he also relied on his receivers, including 6-foot-2 sophomore David Walter, who hauled in an acrobatic catch surrounded by ELB defenders on 3rd and 12 to keep the drive alive. 

“Dave is just clutch,” Riley Tschetter said. “He is a very, very good receiver. He made that one over that really did it for us on third and long.” 

The Phoenix continued to milk the clock, and Tschetter plowed in for the game-clinching score. 

“It was a championship drive,” coach Tschetter said. “They moved the football, and worked our way down the field and killed six-seven minutes off the clock. That was a grind of a drive and we finished it with a touchdown.”

The Phoenix then forced an ELB turnover on downs, and improved to 3-0.

“It was incredible,” Riley Tschetter said. “We’ve been working for years and we haven’t really gotten the big wins, and then we finally got one.”

The teams traded blows in the first half, with Tschetter and Beck engineering scoring drive after scoring drive. ELB led 14-7 after the first quarter, with Beck tossing a touchdown to Poindexter and the speedy Eliot Erickson scoring a touchdown. Tschetter began the game with a 29-yard TD strike to Karter Weber on the opening drive. 

FMFA’s Luke Peters showed off his elusiveness with a 32-yard touchdown run, cutting the deficit to 14-13 at the 7:20 mark of the second quarter. Erickson pushed the Elks ahead, 21-13, on an eight-yard touchdown run. 

Tschetter responded right back, dashing into the end zone for a 28-yard touchdown run and his two-point conversion run made it 21-21 at halftime. 

That’s when the Phoenix seized momentum, scoring two third-quarter touchdowns and the first came after ELB fumbled on its first drive of the half. 

“That was huge,” Riley Tschetter said. “That just changed the whole game. It made them chase us instead of us having to chase them, and it just really gave us confidence in the defense.”

After ELB’s fumble, Peters busted loose for a 43-yard touchdown run and FMFA went ahead, 28-21. Tschetter added a 35-yard touchdown strike to Tate Sorensen, extending the lead to 34-21 with 3:44 left in the third quarter.  

“It changed the momentum of this football game,” coach Tschetter said about the third-quarter surge. “Our defense after we gave up 21 points, we played great the last two and a half quarters. We held them to seven points, and that’s an explosive offense over there and we were able to shut them down and hold our own.” 

The Phoenix will play at Gayville-Volin on Sept. 12. The Elks will host De Smet on Sept. 12.