By Dax Benway, Senior Reporter
With the Northwestern football spring season reaching its peak, the Rangers battled each other in the Red vs. Black spring game Saturday.
The Rangers are under first-year head coach Ronnie Jones, who is looking to bring glory back to the Northwestern football program.
Jones, along with a lot of new faces within the staff, said he is excited about this upcoming season and where the team started versus where it is now.
“It’s always nice to come out of the spring with minimal to no injuries, and I think we’ve done a really good job of that,” Jones said. “We took a big jump this spring, and I think we are a much better team than what we started with in January.”
Not only are the coaches all starting to buy in, but the players are as well.
“It was kind of difficult at first, trying to figure out the new offense and make the changes that the new staff was making, but we are all starting to come together as a team, and we are really excited about this upcoming season,” said Northwestern wide receiver Torrence Stevens.
The red team came out of the blocks on fire, as the offense was making things look easy and they coasted to a 14-0 lead in the first half with touchdowns by wide receiver RJ Kyle. Running back Josh Dimanche found the endzone on a 35-yard touchdown run.
With a 14-0 deficit going into halftime, the black team was determined to make it a close game.
The black team did exactly that coming out of the locker room. Defensive back Braden Waters intercepted quarterback Ethan Everson, and took it 80 yards back for a touchdown for the first score of the game for the black team.
The momentum stayed in black’s favor as quarterback Jake Woodring hooked up with wide receiver Kaden Taylor on a 40-yard completion with two minutes left in the game. This would lead to a touchdown, making the game 17-14 with fewer than two minutes left.
After forcing a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, the black team hit a game-tying field goal as time expired to end the game 17-17.