Hennessey’s offense did enough.

The defense did the rest. While most teams were 24 hours removed from their Week 10 game, Hennessey made the trip north to Newkirk on Friday night to end its regular season.

The Eagles came home with a 22-14 victory to seal third place in District 2A-1.

Langston Smith caught a 3-yard touchdown pass from Titan Hix with 7:30 to play to break a 14-14 tie. Hix ran in the 2-point conversion to give the Eagles an eight-point lead.

Then, just as they did for the final two-and-a-half quarters, the Eagles kept Newkirk out of the end zone.

After the Eagles took the final lead, Kevin Trillo recovered a fumble on Newkirk’s next drive.

The Tigers still had another opportunity, but Brandon Valles picked off a Clayton Bergman pass with 2:00 to play.

The Eagles were able to run out the clock to move to 7-3 for the year, which included a 5-2 mark in district games.

A majority of the state’s games moved to Thursday to avoid predicted poor weather conditions on Friday.

“They had a strong reason not to move the game to Thursday,” said HHS head coach Paul Hix. “It wasn’t sloppy, but there definitely was a driving rain the whole night.”

That plus the wall that is Newkirk’s defensive front slowed Hennessey’s run game. The Eagles netted just 62 yards on 28 carries.

“Their strength was definitely the interior linemen,” Hix said. “With the conditions as bad as they were, they made it as tough as possible to run the ball.”

Unfortunately for the hosts, Hennessey isn’t one-dimensional. The Eagles were able to go through the air, including for two of their three touchdowns.

The first came on their first possession of the game as Hix found Langston Smith for a 12-yard touchdown and a 6-0 lead.

Newkirk answered with the next two touchdowns of the game.

The first was after an 86-yard drive as Bergman hit Gunner Cole for a 20yard score.

The Tigers then went up 14-6 with 6:38 to play in the second quarter when Bergman struck Shaden Pankey from 28 yards out.

Hennessey answered with a quick 71-yard drive and tied the game with 4:08 left in the half when Hix punched it in from 2 yards out.

The tie came when he hit Simunek for the 2-point pass.

Hennessey needed just one more score to win the game because the defense was done giving up points.

After scoring just under midway through the second quarter, Newkirk had seven empty possessions.

Two were turnovers on downs, including with 30 seconds left in the first half when Cam Griffin was able to sack Bergman on fourth down.

One ended with a punt, another with a fumble and three ended with Hennessey players picking off passes.

Simunek had two of those interceptions before Valles’ late pick.

Simunek also led the team with 12 tackles while catching four passes for 86 yards on offense.

“He had the best game of his career defensively,” Hix said. “He and Langston Smith were really the players of the game.”

Smith not only caught the game’s first TD, but had a season-high five receptions from his tight end spot. They covered 33 yards.

“And he had a great night blocking for us,” Hix added.

Also on defense, Griffin had seven tackles, including two for a loss.

Hix was held in check in the run game. Though he had 60 yards on 20 attempts, 31 yards came on one run.

So he went to the air 33 times. He completed 18 (and was picked off twice) for 240 yards.

Weston Smith had five catches for 49 yards and Sebastian Gonzalez four for 72.

Combined, it was enough for Hennessey to scratch out a win and avoid a trip to Jones, the District 2A-2 champ, in the first round of the playoffs.

Instead, that will be Newkirk’s task, though Hennessey must still be road warriors to begin their playoff quest.

They play at Chandler (7-3, 5-2) on Friday. The Lions were second in 2A-2 and are coming off an impressive 20-0 win at Luther in Week 10.