Prairie du Chien earns tough road win at New Glarus 36-28

By Derick Kelly

Entereing week seven of the 2025 regular season, the Prairie du Chien Blackhawks needed a win over the undefeated and D5 #5 ranked New Glarus Glarner Knights to get back to within a game of first place. A road win over a top five team is no small feat.

The Glarner Knights opened the game with a touchdown on their opening possession to take an early 7-0 lead. The Hawks quickly answered with a touchdown of their own on their first offensive drive to pull within one. 

The Hawks, without the services of senior Garrett DeHart, would go for the two-point conversion attempt but were stopped. 

The Hawks’ defense forced the Glarner Knights to punt on their next possession, which was followed by the Prairie offense marching down the field to score their second touchdown of the quarter. The two-point conversion attempt was successful, and the Hawks now led 14-7. That score would hold for the rest of the first quarter.

The second quarter saw the two teams each score a touchdown, with the Hawks unsuccessful on their third two-point attempt of the game. The game went into halftime with Prairie du Chien leading 20-14. 

The third quarter began with the Hawks receiving the opening kick off. PdC was forced to punt on their opening drive of the half. New Glarus took advantage by scoring on their first drive to take a 21-20 lead on the Hawks. 

The PdC offense responded by driving down the field to score the go-ahead touchdown. The Hawks’ two-point conversion attempt was successful, giving them a 28-21 lead into the final quarter.

Early in the fourth quarter, a wild series of events took place that nearly turned the game upside down. 

The Hawks, up only seven points with 9:47 left in the game, were forced to punt from deep in their own territory. The booming punt from Drake Chesebro just barely hit the back of a Glarner Knights player on the return and in the confusion of the play, Prairie du Chien’s Brock Radloff picked up the live ball and returned it 53 yards for what appeared to give the Hawks a two-score lead once again. No whistles had blown the play dead; however, the officiating crew controversially waved off the touchdown and placed the ball back on New Glarus’s 44-yard line. The Hawks offense was forced to punt the ball back to the Glarner Knights after going three-and-out with 8:07 remaining in the game.

Momentum did not stay with New Glarus very long, as they fumbled the ball back to PdC just 50 seconds later on their own 33-yard line. The Hawks took advantage of this miscue by scoring once again on a touchdown run by Darian Jackson.

Now leading the Glarner Knights by a score of 36-21 with 3:37 remaining in the game, the Hawks were on their way to sealing the game with another potential touchdown when the turnover bug struck. A fumble by the Hawks on New Glarus’ 40-yard line was recovered by the Glarner Knights. New Glarus then used only 16 seconds to find the PdC end zone and make it a potential one-score game at 36-28.

The Glarner Knights defense forced the Hawks to go three-and-out with 2:55 remaining in the game. Prairie du Chien was forced to punt once more and a fair catch was called by New Glarus at their 39-yard line. Once again momentum was about to shift the Hawks way as on the third play of the drive, when Prairie du Chien senior Westin Marx stripped the ball away from the New Glarus ball carrier, which was scooped up by Radloff and returned down to the New Glarus 14-yard line with just 2:18 left in the game. The Hawks would march down to the 4-yard line before letting the clock run out on an impressive 36-28 win.

The Hawks offense was led by Jackson and his 238 yards rushing and three touchdowns on 39 carries, third most in a single-game in program history (51 by Bradyn Saint in 2020 against Lancaster and 42 by Zach Thornton in 2011 at Richland Center). Also contributing to the Hawks’ 285 rushing yards were Deacon Chesebro (seven carries for 41 yards), Mason Hird (four carries for three yards), Ashton Landt (one carry for two yards) and Cayden Sutter (one carry for one yard and one touchdown, the first of his career). Sutter was also extremely efficient in the passing game as he was 6-of-9 passing for 170 yards and one touchdown. Hird was his leading receiver, catching two passes for 98 yards in the win. Sutter also found Landt (two catches for eight yards), Drake Chesebro (one catch for 56 yards and one touchdown) and Deacon Chesebro (one catch for eight yards) during the game.

Hird led the defense with 7.0 tackles, with Radloff and Jack Simmons each adding 6.5 tackles as well as Zach Ross collecting one sack in the win. Marx forced two fumbles while Radloff recovered both fumbles.

Prairie du Chien (4-3, 4-1) returns home this week for homecoming as they welcome Lancaster (4-3, 2-3) to town. This will be the 10th time in program history that Lancaster is the homecoming opponent, but for just the second time (2017) in the last 67 years. The Hawks need a win over the Flying Arrows to remain in the race for first place in the SWC.

Prairie du Chien could also get some help this week as New Glarus (6-1, 4-1) travels to River Valley (6-1, 5-0) for a game that has potential huge impacts on the SWC Championship race should New Glarus win as well as potential playoff seeding for several teams, including Prairie du Chien.