The streak survives: Helena rallies in second half to push past Pelham
Published 11:58 pm Friday, October 10, 2025
Helena showed its resilience by scoring 21 second-half points and stepping up on defense to rally for its seventh-straight win over rival Pelham. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)
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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor
PELHAM – “If you’re going to get us, you’d better get us now.”
That’s the message Helena coach Richie Busby preached to outsiders this season with a young and developing team, and through two quarters, it looked like the Pelham Panthers would do just that.
Seeking their first on-field win over the Huskies since 2018, Pelham controlled the tempo in the first half and took Helena’s best shots. However, the Huskies adjusted at the break and fought until the end.
That fight led to a 21-20 comeback win, ensuring the win streak over the Panthers would not end on Oct. 10, 2025 at Ned Bearden Stadium but instead extend for a seventh-straight year.
For Busby, it was as much of a testament to his team’s future as it was to their present.
“It’s been a rough year for these guys,” Busby said. “We only have 15 seniors, we’re playing so many underclassmen. At times, we have five seniors on the ball on both sides of the field combined, so we’ve got a really bright future, and this one’s huge coming here and continuing this streak tonight with this young team.”
Both teams ran the ball heavily in the first half, leading to a rapid-fire pace. While Pelham consistently got first downs and entered the red zone, Helena stalled much sooner than that as sophomore Caleb Soreano adjusted to the game in place of the injured Nate Ferguson.
After the Huskies melted four minutes off the clock on their opening drive, Tristan Rutledge came up big for the Panthers with back-to-back third-down conversion runs. That opened the door for Pelham to strike, and it opened even wider following the first of two defensive pass interference calls in the first quarter.
On the next play after the penalty, Dylan Smith rolled to his left and found Marcus Arnold in stride heading to the end zone. That put the Panthers up 7-0 with 4:12 left in the first, and it was even more crucial as it was the only touchdown of the opening half.
Pelham’s next drive got kickstarted much like its first, by a defensive pass interference call and a Rutledge first-down run, only in the reverse order. However, the Panthers killed the drive with an outside holding call inside the red zone.
Smith salvaged the series with a 15-yard run on third-and-20 to get to the 10-yard line, which let Freddy Lopez-Diaz drain the 27-yarder and increase the lead to 10-0 with 8:43 left in the second.
The Huskies then got around midfield once again before punting, but this time, the defense stepped up even more.
First-down runs by Rutledge and Smith got the Panthers within striking distance, especially after a roughing the passer call. Helena killed all the momentum with a tackle-for-loss by Jonathan Roberto and quick third-down tackle on the edge by Nathan Reed.
That sent the teams into the break with Pelham up 10-0 but the Huskies very much in striking distance.
Helena took full advantage of that opportunity and attacked from the opening drive.
After forcing a punt to start the half, the Huskies tested their biggest halftime adjustment—a new blocking scheme to get Dom Santiago to the outside. It worked to perfection on the first try, a short play on the right sideline that turned into a run all the way to the 1-yard line.
Santiago punched it in from there to cut the deficit to 10-7 with 9:02 left in the third.
It wasn’t quite the immediate momentum shift that Helena wanted, though. Pelham raced past midfield in 30 seconds before Smith found Gibbs in stride up the middle for the touchdown, taking the lead to 17-7.
However, Santiago simply picked up where he left off with another long run off the edge, this time to the Panthers 22-yard line on the very first play.
From there, Bradley Wainwright leaked behind two Pelham defenders in the back corner of the end zone, and Soreano put the throw right on the money for the touchdown.
With the lead down to 17-14, the Panthers relied on Rutledge again to extend drives and get to the red zone.
However, Pelham faced a fourth-and-1 from the 14-yard line going into the fourth quarter, and instead of going for it, opted for a 31-yard Lopez-Diaz field goal instead. It extended the lead to 20-14 but gave Helena the ball with 11:54 left.
Santiago repeated the feat and torched the Panthers for an edge run to the Pelham 41 on the very first play. Soreano then found Davis Kelley twice for crucial plays, first on a short fourth-down completion to the 27 and then on a reverse to the 13-yard line.
Then, it looked like penalties would kill the drive. A holding call brought back a Santiago scoring run to the 16, and shortly afterwards on third-and-5, a false start backed the Huskies up five yards.
Those weren’t the deciding penalties though. Pelham got called for defensive holding on the next play, granting a fresh set of downs and placing the ball right on the doorstep.
Santiago punched it in from there for his second score, and the extra point gave Helena its first lead since Sept. 19 at 31-30 with 6:09 to go.
After an Ethan Drawhorn first-down catch, the Panthers were shortly faced with fourth-and-1. They handed the ball to Rutledge, and after a dramatic wait for a ruling and then a measurement, they got to continue the drive.
Pelham got a chance to finish the job after drawing a defensive pass interference, but a bad snap on third down allowed Helena to get a tackle for loss and force a play for the game. The Panthers looked for Gibbs in a one-on-one, and Cash Bullock was there in coverage to force the incompletion and seal the win.
Santiago finished with 183 all-purpose yards, including 102 rushing yards off 19 carries with two touchdowns. Soreano was nearly perfect with an 11-of-12 completion rate with 143 yards and a touchdown. Besides Santiago, Kelley had 24 yards off three receptions and Isaiah Kenney earned 23 yards on four catches.
After the game, Busby was proud of his players for fighting through adversity and injuries to show their resilience in the second half. He credited Helena’s difficult schedule, which included five losses to top-10 teams and five-straight road games ending in the trip to Pelham, for building their toughness.
“The last four weeks playing Spain Park, Moody, Oxford and Ben Russell, all top-10 teams, they’ve seen some pretty good players, really good o-lines,” Busby said. “Some of those guys are so young, I don’t even know if they know what they’ve did. They made the play when they did, and then our offense came out and scored 21 second-half points.”
He remains proud of his players for accomplishing what they did with the level of experience they had. Now, he believes the sky’s the limit for the future and is confident that the streak will continue for years to come.
“We return a lot of players, we’ve got a lot of good, young players coming up,” Busby said. “If all our kids hang around and do what they’re supposed to do, we’re going to have a special bunch going forward.”
Helena improved to 2-5 with the win and will return home for the first time since Sept. 12 to face the Chelsea Hornets on Oct. 17.
As for Pelham, Rutledge paced the offense with 162 yards off 29 attempts. Smith finished 10-of-17 for passing yards and two touchdowns plus 35 rushing yards, including six completions, 58 yards and a touchdown for Gibbs and three completions, 51 yards and a score for Arnold.
The Panthers dropped to 3-4 on the season ahead of a road trip to the Benjamin Russell Wildcats on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Charles Bailey Sportplex.
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