The star of the game for the Grizzlies (2-0) was Connor Dulmage, who scored on both occasions that he touched the ball. Dulmage had one carry for a 35-yard touchdown and caught one pass for a 67-yard touchdown.
Creekview quarterback Hayden Hall was 8-of-19 with 161 yards, with one touchdown and two
interceptions.
River Ridge running back Austin Terrell had 182 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries.
After receiving the kickoff, Creekview soon found itself at a disadvantage, as Hall was intercepted, coincidentally by River Ridge quarterback Steven Spears — who doubles as a safety — on the 33-yard line.
River Ridge (0-2) couldn’t capitalize on the opportunity, however, and it was forced to punt the ball away.
Creekview finally broke the deadlock with less than 2 minutes to go in the first quarter, when Hall punched it in from 1 yard out to give the Grizzlies the lead.
Creekview doubled their lead 2 minutes into the second quarter, when Dulmage broke numerous tackles en route to his 35-yard touchdown run on an end-around.
Midway through the second, it looked as if River Ridge had made a big stop when Hall was intercepted for the second time as Creekview was moving across midfield.
But the Knights fumbled the ball on the return, and Grizzlies defensive lineman Michael Shaw recovered it on the River Ridge 30-yard line.
Connor Fraser went on to hit a 45-yard field goal, increase Creekview’s lead to 17.
The final points of the half came once again thanks to the footwork of Dulmage, who caught a 67-yard touchdown pass from Hall with less than 2 minutes remaining.
On the final 15 yards of his run, Dulmage spun around two defenders and carried a third across the goal line to make the score 24-0 in favor of the Grizzlies going into halftime.
River Ridge came out firing in the second half, however, as Terrell scored a 77-yard rushing touchdown on the first play from scrimmage.
Creekview responded 4 minutes later when Hunter Udall intercepted Spears and ran it back for a 32-yard touchdown.
Soon after, Creekview’s Ben McClellan added a field goal to make the score 34-7 going into the fourth.
River Ridge managed its first sustained drive of the game, traveling 81 yards on a 10-play, 5-minute drive that ended when Spears threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to running back Will Redding.
But Creekview ate the remainder of the clock on an 65-yard drive that ended the game in the Grizzlies’ favor.
Despite his team’s lopsided victory, Creekview coach Al Morrell had mixed feelings concerning the performance.
“Our defense played tremendous the first half,” he said. “We had a couple fumble recoveries and an interception, and we were very stingy. But, in the second half, we had a couple of big mistakes. And offensively, we have to keep improving.”
Though Creekview managed to cut down on its total number of penalties from last week, Morrell still felt improvement need to be made on the amount of infractions.
“Once again, we had way too many penalties, on both sides of the ball,” Morrell said. “We’re stopping ourselves more than the other team’s defense is stopping us.”
Morrell was very impressed, however, with the performance of Dulmage, a junior wide receiver.
“He was electric (Friday). The kid’s got a huge heart and he made some tremendous plays.”
For River Ridge coach Robert Braucht, the biggest concern was learning how to play consistently at a high level throughout the game, rather than just a half.
“We did great in the second half,” Braucht said. “If we could have put something together in the first half and not had the mental mistakes that we did, we might have been in the game. But a good second half doesn’t win the ball game unless you play the first two quarters as well.”
Post a Comment
