WELLS — Battered and beaten, the United South Central Rebels football team stumbled off of John Drugg Field on Friday night just hoping to recover before next week.

Many players had tears in their eyes, while others nursed injuries with ice packs.

But they all managed to gather themselves up to break out of the team huddle one last time.

The Rebels (1-4) had just suffered a 35-0 defeat at the hands of Martin County West (4-1). A game in which the greatest weapon for the Mavericks was the Rebels offense.

Martin County West only managed one touchdown on offense, the four other scores came on defense or special teams.

“At halftime we only gave up 63 total yards, including two-yards rushing. Defensively we played a great game,” USC head coach Brad Huse said. “We had a great game plan. It’s just offensively we shot ourselves too many times in the foot.”

The Mavericks defense scored on two interception returns and a fumble recovery in the endzone. Their special teams was able to block a punt and return the ball for a touchdown on the play.

After a scoreless first quarter, sophomore Travis Brown threw his first of three interceptions of the night on a ball tipped into the air by Kyle Bauman. The Mavericks Tyler Sinn opted to run the ball out from two yards deep in the endzone and he was off to the races, scoring on a 102-yard interception return.

The Rebels struggled all night to get their offense moving. They finished with 91 total yards of offense including 39 yards rushing against MCW.

Two possessions later the Mavericks blocked a Walker Linde punt and Tyson Schuder returned the ball 48 yards for the score. Bryan Andrews would tack on another score before halftime on another interception return, this one 16 yards.

A bright spot for the Rebels was the defensive play of sophomore Dylan Herman. He was able to pick-off two Jake Faber passes in the first half, holding the Maverick offense scoreless.

“He does a nice job for us,” Huse said. “He’s not the quickest guy out there but he knows where to be.”

Faber would hook up with Austin Krumwiede on a 30-yard touchdown reception for the games lone offensive barrage. Andrews tacked on the games final points after recovering a Rebel botched snap in the endzone for the score.

Cole Stencel returned to the Rebels offense for a series in the second quarter but left the game after re-injuring the same shoulder that he separated earlier this season and had surgery on to repair a torn labrum last spring. Huse said it is hard to say if he’ll be done for the year.

“The guys that got hurt tonight we’ll have to see how they respond this week,” Huse said. “(Tyler) Lackey had a hip pointer and Linde a bruised his knee, a contusion. So we’ll wrap him up and take it day by day.”

One bright spot for the Rebels is that starting running back Chris Melby will be back playing both ways next week after a hip flexor limited him to only the defensive side of the ball Friday night.

USC will travel to Maple River next week with hopes of getting players healthy and returning to form before the playoffs. If they can’t get healthy Huse will look to the younger players to fill the void.

“Last week we had six sophomores out there,” he said. “It’s a growing process every week. We have to find a new guy to step in and do that. We’ll go back to basics and regroup.”

Martin County West 0 21 14 0_35

United South Central 0 0 0 0_0

First Quarter

None

Second Quarter

MCW_Tyler Sinn 102 interception return (Andrews) 6:21

MCW_Tyson Schuder 48 blocked punt return (Andrews) 2:12

MCW_Bryan Andrews 16 interception return (Andrews) 2:00

Third Quarter

MCW_Austin Krumwiede 30 pass from Jake Faber (Andrews) 6:53

MCW_Bryan Andrews 0 fumble recovery (Andrews) 6:27

Fourth Quarter

None

MCW      USC

First downs                 6               7

Rushes-yards         32-68       31-39

Comp-Att-Int        6-15-2      6-24-3

Passing                       89             52

Total yards                157            91

Punts-avg.              2-30.0     5-40.2

Fumbles-lost            0-0           5-2

Penalties-yards      10-65        4-23

Rushing_Martin County West, Bryan Andrews 12-52, Trevor Schultz 7-16, Wesley Cook 1-12, Mitch Sitzmann 3-8, Jake Faber 4-7, Toby Haugen 2-(minus 2), Alex Saxen 1-(minus 11), Sam Baker 2-(minus 14). United South Central, Tyler Lackey 5-25, Dylan Herman 8-19,Colten Carlson 3-12, Jacob Gonsalez 1-2, Cole Stencel 1-0, Walker Linde 2-(minus 5), Travis Brown 11-(minus 14).

Passing_Martin County West, Jake Faber 6-15-2-89. United South Central, Travis Brown 5-21-3-44, Cole Stencel 1-3-0-8.

Receiving_Martin County West, Austin Krumwiede 2-56, Mitch Sitzmann 3-29, Tyler Sinn 1-4. United South Central, Kyle Bauman 3-29, Cobi Bullerman 2-15, Walker Linde 1-8.