Visitors Nashua-Plainfield used the increasingly wet turf to its advantage, running around and over the Comets in the second half for a 20-6 victory, playing spoiler for the Comets’ Homecoming festivities. BCLUW dropped its first home game of the season and is now 3-2 on the year.

It didn’t start that way, though — A time-consuming opening drive from the Huskies (4-1) took nearly eight minutes off the clock in the first quarter but ended with the Comets stopping a fourth-and-three at the BCLUW five-yard line and preventing a score. The Comets carried that momentum and slowly marched down the field using the ground game — until Tyler Bracy took the ball 37 yards into Huskies territory.

With 9:27 left in the second quarter, Bracy finished off the drive with a seven-yard touchdown run to give a boisterous BCLUW crowd something to cheer for. The two-point conversion attempt failed, but the Comets led 6-0.

On their next drive, the Huskies began to exert the full force of their long-standing Wing-T offensive set-up, utilizing sweeps to the strong side of the field and mixing in fullback dives to keep BCLUW off-balance.

Nashua-Plainfield running back Aiden Gelner made some big headway against the Comet defense, eventually tying the game up with a 10-yard run (the two-point attempt failed).

The Huskies then drove down deep into BCLUW territory as the first half wound down, with only a Cael Keller pass breakup preventing a touchdown. At the half it was 6-6, but problems were starting to arise for the Comets.

Head coach Jeff Pikna said the problems were numerous against the Huskies’ well-drilled approach.

“We had to rotate on the defensive line quite a bit because we had a couple guys go down,” Pikna said. “What it comes down to is you can tell Nashua-Plainfield has done this for a long time because they run it well. There’s a lot of things we did wrong, there’s a lot of reads we didn’t take on and there’s a lot of keys that we didn’t take on.”

Following consecutive drives that ended in fourth-down stops, the Comets and Huskies went into the final frame tied 6-6. It didn’t take long in the fourth quarter for Nashua-Plainfield to score on a sweep with Gelner again, once again from around 10 yards out. Leading 12-6 after the two-point attempt failed, the Huskies then forced a three-and-out from the Comet offense. Unable to move the ball as consistently in the second half, the Comets then allowed a long drive that took five minutes off the clock.

After running the ball for 10-plus plays in a row, the Huskies suckered in BCLUW’s defense and then hit the dagger. Quarterback Bo Harrington found an open Joel Winters for a 40-yard touchdown, and the score was 20-6 with less than five minutes to play.

Walker Ashton had a difficult night at the office for the Comets, not playing to the very high level he achieved in the first four games of the season and throwing an interception on BCLUW’s final two drives. Pikna said the rain really affected Ashton’s handle on the ball, particularly in the second half — adding that he knows the Comets will get better games from Ashton the rest of the year.

“I think it was absolutely the rain,” Pikna said. “I know Walker, we know Walker and we know what type of ball he can throw. That’s not him.

This is the first game all year we’ve had to deal with anything but perfect conditions, and when push came to shove it kind of showed.”

With the loss, the Comets dented their postseason hopes slightly but will have the chance to bounce back with a visit to North Tama next Friday night.