By Kristi Nixon

Osage coach Torian Wolf, second from left, reacts as his players take hold of the L.R. Falk traveling trophy between St. Ansgar and Osage on Saturday afternoon in St. Ansgar. The Green Devils won, 20-13. EJ Photo/Kristi Nixon

ST. ANSGAR — Four first-half turnovers, one for an 88-yard interception return by Cole Jeffries that proved to be the winning touchdown, aided Osage to a 20-13 win against Osage on Saturday.

The game was delayed several times for a grand total of 20 hours due to weather, leaving the field soupy at best, but the Green Devils never lost their focus.

“We had a goal coming into tonight and we wanted to be the more physical team from play one to the last play,” Osage coach Torian Wolf said, “and St. Ansgar is one of the most physical teams you’ll find in the state, so if we can be super-physical with them, that bodes well with what we want to do this season since St. Ansgar is such a good program.”

Jeffries, who not only had the winning touchdown pick-six, but made the stop on Saints quarterback Tate Mayer on fourth down to cement the final score.

“That felt great,” Jeffries said of the interception for the touchdown. “Last year, I played D-End so I didn’t have a lot of those opportunities, but I read the quarterback coming out, the ball was in my hands and my thoughts were just gone. I was just hoping to get to the sideline and watched all the coaches get hyped on the sideline.

He added about the final defensive stop, “Saw quarterback in between the two backs, saw him come up, he bit and so did I. No stopping there, he was going down.”

Wolf had nothing but glowing things to say about Jeffries.

“He’s a beast, man,” Wolf said. “He’s a beast in the weight room and it proves on the football field that he put all the work in the off-season.”

Lorne Isler’s three-yard touchdown run to cap a 14-play drive put the Saints within a score at 20-13 with 3 minutes, 47 seconds left to play. Despite the fact the Green Devils recovered the onside kick, they went 3-and-out to allow St. Ansgar one last chance, but Jeffries sacked Mayer to turn it over on downs.

St. Ansgar coach Drew Clevenger liked what he saw from Mayer’s first start.

“Tate did a good job, obviously wasn’t clean,” Clevenger said. “We were inside the 10 twice in the first half. Once we have a miscue on a play call, second time we’re driving to score and we don’t run the play quite correctly and make a bad decision that leads to a pick-six. It is what it is. Our kids battled and I thought defenses on both sides were quite good.”

More on this story will appear in the Sept. 4 issue of the Enterprise Journal

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