STURGIS, SD – The Sturgis Scoopers piled up 488 yards of total offense with no turnovers in a dominating 42-0 victory over the Douglas Patriots on Friday night at Woodle Field.
The Scoopers were coming off a 31-0 loss to the Brookings Bobcats on Aug. 30th and needed to reset their season and to get back on track.
On their second possession of the first quarter, the Scoopers took over on their own 20-yard Ine and drove the ball 80-yards downfield in four plays, culminating in a 19-yard touchdown pass from Carter Williams to Teigen Wormstadt to take a 7-0 lead.
With just over five minutes left in the second quarter, Sturgis found paydirt again with a 1-yard run by Sully Jost to take a 14-0 lead at the half. Jost ran for more than 100 yards in the first half.
“Sully’s a playmaker and he’s a guy that we knew we’d have to emphasize,” exclaimed Scooper head coach Chris Koletzky. “Looking back at week one he’s had a little bit of an ankle issue so that hampered him a little bit (against Brookings).”
The Scoopers came out firing in the second half, as Williams found Wormstadt again with a 31-yard rainbow pass into the endzone with under two minutes gone in the third quarter to give Sturgis a 21-0 lead.
Sturgis started their next possession on their own 28-yard line and Jost broke off a 43-yard run through the middle of the Douglas defense to advance the ball to the Patriot 3-yard line. Jost took the next handoff into the endzone to extend the Scooper lead over Douglas to 28-0.
Sturgis kept their foot on the gas pedal as Williams found Brody Royer down the right sideline for a 59-yard bomb with 1:36 left in the third. Sturgis led 35-0 headed into the fourth quarter. The Scoopers tacked on one more score on a 2-yard plunge up the middle by reserve quarterback Jaxon Cano with 5:30 left to give Sturgis a 42-0 shutout victory. Koletzky was happy with the win.
“I think we played more physical and together,” said Koletzky. “We’re going to have to lean on our defense a little until our offense gets things figured out. We still have a lot of things to improve on. I’m proud of the boys but I’m not proud of the personal fouls. We’ve got to clean that stuff up, but overall this gives us a little bit of confidence and we’ve got to go back to work.”
Williams finished 10-of-19 passing for 147 yards and three touchdowns and gave his offensive line all the credit.
“Our offensive line was almost perfect tonight,” Williams said. “I can only recall one play where I had to move myself out of the pocket. They were spectacular tonight, all of them played their butts off, they deserve all the credit in the world.”
Williams bounced back from a tough outing in Brookings due to a good week in practice.
“We came into this week with a much better mindset in the passing game,” said Williams. “Week one we opened up a little shaky, but this week we came in with a much more open approach. We knew that the outside routes were going to be open and we could hit guys on the boundary.”
Jost ran for 220 yards on 16 carries and two scores. Wormstadt caught four passes for 57-yards and two touchdowns. The Scoopers had no turnovers and seven penalties for 70 yards. Douglas finished with 180 total yards, 116 on the ground and 54 yards passing. The Patriots had one interception and six penalties for 50 yards.
Koletzky knows that next week’s opponent, the Rapid City Stevens Raiders, will be a tough challenge.
“The caliber of players that they have means that we have to do everything right to be able to compete in that game,” said Koletzky.
The Scoopers (1-1) host the Raiders (0-2) at Woodle Field next Friday night. Kickoff is scheduled for 7pm.
