Heber Springs junior Seth Dudeck ties his dad with record-setting punts
It was a cold and windy November night when Heber Springs traveled to Mountain View to close out the 1987 season.
The Panthers were concluding a disappointing 3-7 campaign while the Yellowjackets were looking to wrap up a playoff bid.
It would also be the final game for the winningest coach in school history, Heber Springs High School graduate Dennis DeBusk.
The Panthers battled, and thanks to a stingy defense and field position, Heber Springs and Mountain View ended regulation all tied at 0-0. The Yellowjackets would go on to win in overtime 7-0 and claim a playoff a spot (they would lose to Greenbrier in the playoffs the next week).
One of the keys of the field position battle was the leg of junior Pat Dudeck.
Dudeck, who passed away in 2016, would punt the ball five times against Mountain View, including a school record 73-yard punt and a 65-yarder that ranks in the top 10 of longest punts in school history. He also became the first Panther in recorded school history to have two punts of 60-yards plus in the same game.
Though there have been five 60-yard plus punts since that cold November night in 1987, no one else has managed to have two in the same game like Dudeck.
That is until Friday night.
Pat’s son, Seth, moved right next to his dad in the record book with two 60-yard plus punts in the same game. The junior punted the ball five times and hit a 67- and 62-yarder in a 17-14 setback to Pottsville.
It was the first game of Heber Springs High School graduate Caleb Carmikle’s Panther coaching career.
“Man, he can bomb that thing,” Carmikle said. “Not many high school kids can turn a ball over like he can.
“That’s a weapon and that really does help you when you’re struggling offensively if you get somebody that can flip the field every time. It helps our defense out a ton.”
Besides the Dudeck’s, other Panthers to have punts of 60-plus yards in recorded school history include Dennis Astin, Gideon Tate, Ben Caston and father and son, Danny Martin and Adam Martin.
Pat averaged 42 yards per punt against Mountain View in 1987, but Seth one-upped his dad with 251 yards punting for a school-record 50.2 average (Adam Martin had held the school record with his 50 average on three punts against Greenbrier in 2018).
Seth also tied Jerry Todd (1963), Brock Bertrand (1995) and Edward Rouse (2004) with a school-record four points downed inside the 20.
Dudeck’s final punt of 62 yards rolled into the end zone or he would have broken the record.
Regardless, that punt flipped the field and kept the Panthers in the game.
“That last punt was incredible,” Carmikle said. “I think Seth has the potential to be a really, really, really good one. Obviously, you look at his frame and he’s a good-looking kid. He put a lot of weight on this offseason with strength and conditioning, and he can run.”
While Pat was a quarterback for the Panthers during the 1986 through 1988 campaigns, the younger Dudeck plays wide receiver.
Seth finished the night with two receptions for 37 yards and a touchdown in the loss to Pottsville.
“He’s got great hands,” Carmikle said. “We just got to get our timing down in the passing game. I hate it that we haven’t been able to show it yet with the preseason scrimmage and in the week zero game, but we showed some things this summer at camps that I’m waiting to see on a Friday night that are really going to impress people.”
One of the three wins during the 1987 campaign for the Panthers was thrilling 19-12 homecoming victory over Clinton in which Dudeck threw the game-winning pass to Shane Nelson in overtime.
Seth will look to accomplish the same thing tonight except be on the receiving end as the Panthers travel to Clinton to battle the Yellowjackets.